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GO\TRNOR OF VIRGINIA 




i 



A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



OF 



HENRY A. WISE, 



WITH A HISTOllY 



OF THE 



POLfflCAL 



D 



N IS f IRGffllA IN \m 



TO WHICH IS AI>BEI> 



A REVIEW OF THE POSITION OF PARTIES IN THE UNION, 
AND A STATEMENT OF THE POLITICAL ISSUES ; 
DISTINGUISHING THEM ON THE EVE 
OF THE PRESIDENTIAL CAM- 
PAIGN OF IS56, 



BY JAMES P. HAMBLETON, M. D, 



J. W. RANDOLPH, 

121 MAIN STKEKT, RICHMOND, VA, 
1856. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, 
BY JAMES P. HAMBLETON, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, 
in and for the Eastern District of Virginia. 



PRINTED BY JOHN NOWLAN. 



TO THE 

DEMOCRATIC PRESS OF VIRGINIA, 

FOR ITS 

POWERFUL INFLUENCE 

IN THE 

GUBERNATORIAL CAMPAIGN OF 1855, 

THIS SKETCH 

IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED 

BY 

THE AUTHOR. 



PEEFACE. 



The Gubernatorial Campaign in Virginia, in 1855, will long 
be remembered as one of unprecedented excitement, of unu- 
sual bitterness, and of a character and caste unknown to her 
States Rights citizens. \Vhen all other States had faltered 
and wavered under the wily and Protean forms of Federalism, 
the true conservatives of all sections looked, and that not in 
vain, we are proud to say, to the " Mother of States and 
Statesmen," to bear aloft, untarnished and untainted, that flag 
of principles, the strict adherence and unfaltering devotion to 
which have alike made us the most powerful, the- most happy, 
and the most respected among the States of the Union. The 
politics of Virginia in 1855, was never, in all her history, in a 
more critical and alarming condition. Assailed, as she was, on 
all sides and in all places, by emissaries, tricksters, and all man- 
ner of invisible influences, her situation at that time was one of 
inexplicable delicacy. 

The people of Virginia knew their responsibility ; and that 
their course in the contest then pending, would more or less 
govern the elections of the Southern States. With this know- 
ledge, aniinated by their love of Democracy, they resolved to 
preserve the dignity and reputation of their State, and to rise 
in all their majesty and power, as terrible as an army with ban- 
ners, and, headed by her noble and gifted son, who knew no 
defeat, to fight the great political battle, then to come otf, of 
the nation. 

It is of him we now ofier to give the merest sketch, leaving 
the interim of his life, with the particulars of his antecedents, 
which would fill volumes, and his subsequent course, which 
will doubtless fill more, to be chronicled by one more skilled, 
more competent, and more practiced, than the subscriber. 

James Pinkney Hambleton, M. D. 

Pittsylvania C, H., December 1855. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 



THE BIRTH, PARENTAGE, AND ANCESTRY OF HENRY A. WISE. 

Henry Alexander Wise was boni December 3d, 1806, at Acco- 
mack court-house, called Drummondtown, Tlie hou|e iu which his 
father lived at that time is now (1855) occupied as a tavern-hoiise by 
William Waddy. His parents were John and Sarah. His father, 
John Wise, was the son of John Wise, a commissioned colonel of the 
king, and one of the earliest immigrants to the Eastern Shore of Vir- 
ginia. He was a man of distinction and consideration in his day. 
He and his brother TuUy, came from the North of England and pur- 
chased lands upon the Chesconessex and Deep creeks in Accomack. 
John Wise, the great grandfather of Henry A., bought iOOO acres of 
land, upon the Chesconessex, from the Indians, for seven Dutch blan- 
kets. Upon a farm of the old original Dutch blanket tract, called 
Clifton, lie the bones of most of the Wise family. After the death of 
Col. John Wise, this estate descended by primogeniture to John Wise, 
the father of Henry A., at his death was devised to his two eldest sons, 
George Douglass and John James Wise. George died unmarried and 
intestate — and John James took the whole of the manor tract ; and his 
two sons, John James and George Douglass Wise, (nephews) of Henry 
A., now own it under the original grant. The mother of John Wise 
was Peggy Douglass, one of the daughters of George Douglass, a 
Scotch lawyer, who was the first immigrant of this family to this 
country. His Law books, the old English Reporters, and elementary 
works, such as a Natura Brevium of the first edition, Coke upon Lit- 
tleton, printed in 1629 — are still in the possession of Governor Wise. 

The father of Governor Wise was married twice. His first wife 
was Mary (called Polly) Henry, daughter of Judge James Henry of 
Fleet's Bay in Northumberland county, Virginia. By her he had two 
sons, George Douglass and John James. By his second wife he had 
four children, William Washington, born in 1800, and died in 1813, 
Margaret D. P.. Henry A., and John C. Wise who is now residing in 



Vlll BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

Princess Ann county, near Norfolk, and has seven children living, four 
boys and three girls. 

The mother of Governor Wise was Sarah Corhin Cropper, the 
daughter of General John Cropper of Bowman's Folly in the county 
of Accomack, on the sea side. Her mother was Margaret, called 
^""sggy, Pettitt. The Croppers were English, the Pettitts Scotch. 
This cross is called by some genealogists, the " Bulldoci; with the 
Mange,''^ meaning the English for the Bull^ and the Mange for a cer- 
tain cutaneous eruption that was at one time common with the Scotch, 
called the ^^ Scotch Fiddle.'' Governor Wise's grandfather, Gen. John 
Cropper, was descended from John Cropper, one of the very earliest im- 
migrants, who came with Sir Edmund Bowman from England and set- 
tled at Folly oreek. The first John Cropper, the great, great, great 
grandfather of Governor Wise, was a carpenter by trade. He was fami- 
liarly known as the •' Little Carpenter." The knight. Sir Edmund 
Bowman, had three daughters, one married Col. Eyre, one Col. Scar- 
borough (called conjurer) the ancestor of the Hon. George P. Scarbo- 
rough, the man who put the Broad Arrow of Virginia upon the door- 
posts of the (Quakers near Cambridge, Maryland. The third, and 
youngest, married the "little carpenter" or John Cropper, against the 
wishes of the aristocratic Bowman family. After the death of Sir 
Edmund Bowman, the landed estate upon which he resided, called 
Bowman's Folly, descended through the " little carpenter" to Colonel 
John Cropper, from original grant, and remained in his possession until 
his death in 1821, when it fell into the hands of Thomas R. Joynes. 

The life of Col. John Cropper was eminently eventful and patriotic. 
He was born to wealth, and at the age of eighteen married Peggy 
Pettitt. At nineteen he was commissioned Captain in the Matthews 
regiment in February 1776, and that year marched to the Northern 
campaigns, leaving his wife, 7 months enciente with Governor Wise's 
mother. He fought under Washington at Germantown, Princeton, 
Monmouth, Trenton, Chadsford, Brandywine, and every where until 
the war changed its scenes to the South. He returned, after an ab- 
sence of two years, upon furlough, a Lieut. Col., commissioned upon 
the grounds of merit by General Marquis de La Fayette, the auto- 
graph of which is now in the possession of Governor Wise, On his 
arrival home, he saw, for the first time, his daughter, then about 
eighteen months old, whom they called Sarah Corbin Cropper, 
and who in after life married the father *of Henry A. Wise. In 1779 
Congress commissioned him full Lieut. Col. of the Virginia Line on 
Continental establishment. He was wounded in the thigh by a bayo- 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. IX 

net thrnst at the battle of Brandywine, where he fonght as Major, his 
Col. was killed and Lieut. Col. fled ; and he brought the ninth Vir- 
ginia regiment off the field, cut to pieces, under a Bandanna hand- 
kerchief tied to a ramrod. Afterwards General Knox met him at 
Chester bridge, when he sprung from his horse and exclaimed to Wash- 
ington, " The hoy whom wc thoufiht lost is founds This won for him 
his spurs. When he returned to Bowman's Folly in the fall of 1778, it 
was with a furlough of 190 days. But whilst at home within three 
miles of Accomack court-house, he was aroused in the night by the 
tories. Kidd, with his "refugees," had landed iii barges, surrounded 
the house and took him out of bed with his wife. They bored the 

muzzles of their pistols in his temples and denounced him as a d d 

rebel, threatened his life, &c. Peggy Pettitt — his wife— of whom he 
always spoke as a "keen ground razor," procured for him a chance 
to escape, by stealthily raising the latch of the eastern door of the 
house, when with a powerful effort, he leaped the heads of the guards, 
two soldiers with crossed bayonets, and made his way to Thomas 
Bayly's, who had gone to his goose blind. But there he found a man 
by the name of William Lilliston, a soldier of the army, who 
had returned home with him. He and Lilliston procured three 
old Tower muskets, which they well loaded, and returned to 
his house. When they got in sight, tlie whole dwelling appeared 
illuminated. His wife, with her daughter Sarah Corbin, had been 
removed to a place of safety, whilst a train of powder was being 
laid to blow up the old family residence. Just at this critical 
moment Col. Cropper fired a gun and cried out "come on my brave 
boys." Lilliston dropped his gun and fled; but Col. Cropper still 
fired another and" another, when the "refugees" took to their heels 
and their barges !! ! Thus he saved his house from flames. When 
he examined it he found it robbed and riddled. They had broken 
open and sacked every piece of furniture in the house, smashed all the 
crockery, and carried off all of his jewelry and family relics, together 
with his mother's and father's watches. They also had bound and 
taken to their barges some thirty odd of his staves. The next day 
he sent a flag of truce by Lilliston, demanding his property, especially 
his filial keepsakes, his father s and mother's trinkets. The reply he 
got was in substance thus : " The property whom you call slaves are 
liege subjects of his Majesty George the 3d, who don't desire to re- 
turn to the bondage of a rebel subject. We have no other property 

of yours except a paper of pins of the manufacture of your d d 

allies the French: in lieu of that we send you a paper of pound pins 



X BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

of good and liege manufacture, knowing as we do that your women 
have to go to the thorn-bushes to get the pins to tuck up their smocks." 
That was all Col. Cropper ever got, except a remarkable death caused 
by that very paper of English pou?id pins. Thus he was compelled 
to ask for an extension of his furlough. He rode all the way from 
Accomack to Valley Forge to get it. The diary of his trip is still in 
the possession of the family. The result was, his furlough was 
indefinitely extended, in consideration that he had served through 
the Northern campaigns, and was not drafted for the Southern under 
General Greene. He returned, but remained active in service. 
Governor Nelson commissioned him county Lieut, for Accomack, 
and as such, he had to bring the cannon out against the tories 
at Accomack court-hoase, and fought the battle of Henry's Point, 
where his life was saved by his body servant George Latchom. He 
took this command temporarily until he should be again called into 
the service. As county Lieut, he was in constant correspondence 
with Governor Nelson, and furnished the army at Yorktown with 
many supplies, particularly peach brandy, for which the Eastern Shore 
has long been noted. At last his struggles for independence ended, 
but not until the very last day of the Revolution. Kidd with his 
" refugees" had been scouring the whole coast of Maryland and Vir- 
ginia. The States at that time had their separate fleets of barges. 
Commodore Barron was in command of the Virginia, and Commodore 
Whaley of the Maryland fleets. These fleets consisted of barges 
about eighty feet keel, carrying sixteen oars and a swivel, or giui upon 
the Long Tom principle, in the bow, upon the Chesapeake bay. Just 
such had Kidd. The Accomack and Northampton regiment had been 
cut up and taken prisoners at the battle of Germantown. Among 
them was Capt. Thomas Parker of Accomack, afterwards Col. Parker. 
He with Col. Levin Joynes were exchanged artd came home. Com- 
modore Whaley with his second Lieut. Levin Handy of Md. came to 
Accomack C. H. and told Cols. Cropper, Parker and Joynes, that Kidd 
was coming down the bay, outside of Tangier, with six barges, and 
that he had five in Watts' island or Pocomoke Sound, and that if he 
could get another barge from Virginia, he could meet and capture the 
enemy. Cols. Cropper. Parker and Joynes immediately volunteered 
and got seventy-five picked men to join them upon condition that Com. 
Whaley and his second Lieut. Handy was to command them. The 
condition was accepted, and the barge Victory was then lying in Onau- 
cock creek ready. She was hauled up and caulked, equipped and made 



BrOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. XI 

out into the bay. Kidd and his six barges were in the northwest, about 
ten miles distant from the mouth of Onancock creek. Robert Handy, 
first Lieut, and brother of Levin Handy, was about the same distance 
in the north. Whaley made signal for the Maryland barges to join the 
Virginia barge Victory. Listead of doing so they turned and fled to the 
mouth of Pocomoke. This so chagrined Com. Whaley that he begged 
the Virginians to fight, but declined to command them to do so, as his 
own barges had so ingloriously fled. His volunteers cheered him into 
action, and one barge, the Victory, went up into action against six, gun- 
wale to gunwale, and had made three strikes, when alas, her magazine 
took fire, blew up the barge and all overboard, dashing everything to 
atoms, and killing every man on board except Cols. Cropper, Parker, and 
a Scotchman by the name of Gibb. They were picked up out of 
the water as prisoners of war. Col. Cropper received a sabre cut on 
his head as he was taken into the barge of Kidd that well nigh cost 
him his life. Col. Cropper said the last he saw of the gallant Lieut. 
Handy (a few moments before the blow up) his right arm was hanging 
by a shred of flesh, and with his left hand he was throwing cold grape- 
shot at the enemy. This battle was fought the very day the definitive 
articles of peace were signed at Paris. Maryland has Col. Cropper's 
report of this bloody action, but has never told it to the world, as we 
have ever .seen or heard of, although her Goldsborough wrote a his- 
tory of Naval warfare. Her gallant Whaley, the hero of the fight, 
still lies upon the banks of the Onancock with not a stone to comme- 
morate his patriotic ashes. This was decidedly one of the bloodiest 
engagements during the Revolntion. The three prisoners were ex- 
changed at Accomack C. H., and the friends were dressing the wound 
of Col. Cropper, when his wife appeared with her infant daughter, Mar- 
garet Bayly, (the mother of Gerieral Thomas H. Bayly,) sobbing, say- 
ing "you deserve it, a Continental army oflicer, to be leaving your 
wife and children to fight sailors on the water." Her sobs were hectic, 
and in pinning her child's dress with one of the English pound pins 
in her month, she inhaled it into her lungs and was killed. Washing- 
ton gave Col. Cropper command of the fourteen lower counties, when 
about to raise the Provincial army, with a letter of compliment, which 
I suppose all the wealth of the Indies could not buy away from 
the pride of the family. He was President of the Cincinnati So- 
ciety of Virginia, was in the State Senate, made and died a Brigadier 
General of the Eastern Shore regiment in the month of January 1821, 
aged 65 years. His mother was Sarah Corbin, the daughter of a Col. 



Xn BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

Gorbiii of a numerous family in the Low Lands. Col, Cropper's first 
wife was Peggy Pettitt. By her he had two daughters, Sarah Corbin, 
the mother of Governor Wise, and Margaret Pettitt, the mother of the 
Hon. Thomas H. Bayly. His second wife was Catharine IJayley, 
daughter of Thomas Bayly of Accomack. She died in 1854. Her 
eldest son. Thomas Bayly Cropper, was for some time commander of 
one of largest San Francisco steamers. 

The politics of Mr. Wise's ancestors — his education, profes- 
sion AND FIRST MARRIAGE. 

The ancestors of Governor Wise on both sides were Virginia Fede- 
ralists. His father was a man of sound practical mind, charitable and 
liberal. He acquired considerable fortune by his profession, the law. 
Prior to 1800 he was Speaker of the House of Delegates, and accord- 
ing to the recollection of Judge Stanard, was a supporter of the cele- 
brated resolutions of '98 and, '99. In the hasty arrangement of this 
sketch, we have not had the opportunity to examine the House Jour- 
nal of that day. We are inclined to doubt the fact as to Mr. Speaker 
Wise's supporting those resolutions, because their passage created an 
epidemic in the ranks of the Federal party and its aliases, from which 
they have never recovered. At the time of the birth of Governor 
Wise his father was clerk of the courts of Accomack. H!e died in 
1812. 

After the death of Mr. Wise's father, in 1812, and his mother, 
in 1813, he was taken to Bowman's Folly, the old family seat 
of his ancestor, the knight, Sir Edmund Bowman. Soon there- 
after he was sent to Accomack court-house, and for the first time 
put under the charge of an old friend of his father, a childless man 
with a good wife, John Y. Bundick, to commence his education. He 
was only sufiered to remain with Mr. Bundick a very short time, when 
he was placed under the care of two paternal aunts, at Clifton, on the 
Chesconesse.^ creek. His elder aunt, Mrs. Outen, taught him his let- 
ters and the Lord's prayer. He remained at Clifton two years, and 
was sent to Margaret academy. This school is said to have been 
wretchedly conducted. The boys that were sent there learned no- 
thing but mischief, and to murder Greek and Latin. Consequently, 
the time he spent at Margaret academy was almost squandered. He 
was sent from there, in his sixteenth year, to Washington college, 
Pennsylvania. He reached there in 1822, and, with much difficulty, 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xiu 

entered the Sophomore class. The college at that time was under the 
dominion of the Scotch Irish Presbyterians. Dr. Andrew Wylie was 
the President and the head and front of the institution. It is said he 
was a gentleman', a philosopher, a linguist, and a metaphysician — a blue 
stocking who loved gallantry and high game in his pupils. He was also a 
cavalier who loved virtue for virtue's sake, truth for truth's sake, and his 
fellow creatures for their own sake. At the time Mr. Wise commenced 
his collegiate course at Washington, Pennsylvania, there were two 
most excellent literary societies, the Union and the Washington. He 
joined the former. It was the custom with these literary societies to 
contest every spring with each other the palm of debating, of original 
oration, of essay writing, and of select oratory. In the spring of 
1823 Mr. Wise had given such evidences at this early hour of his 
oratorical powers, that he was selected by his society as the champion 
to deliver the original oration. Mr. Tomlinson, about twenty years of 
age, from near Cumberland, Maryland, was the champion of the W^ash- 
ington. The. orations were delivered and decided by the judges in 
favor of Henry A. Wise. Mr. Tomlinson declared from that time 
eternal hostility to all beards; for, said he, "it was the beard upon 
my Aice that caused a child to strip me of my honors." Mr. Wise 
was chosen orator by. the Union society three times during his colle- 
giate career, gaining the victory twice, and the third time bringing the 
judges down to a tie vote. 

He graduated in 1825, a short time before he was nineteen; divi- 
ding the first honor with a young man by the name of Mitchell, from 
Maryland. William H. McGuffey (Professor of Moral Philosophy at 
the University of Virginia) would have taken the same honor without 
any opponent had he remained the session out. He was tried and sus- 
pended for thrashing a fellow student. Mr. Wise volunteered his de- 
fence before the faculty. He pleaded guilty. His young a/^mey justi- 
fied his course, and came well nigh sufftn-ing the penalty of his client. 
The standing of Mr. McGuffey \vas such that the faculty gave 
him a diploma without examination. He left college before^ the 
commencement. This was the first case in which Mr. Wise 
appeared as a lawyer. How now stand these gentlemen of the 
same Alma Mater? One adorns the chair of Moral Philosophy in xhe 
greatest, best regulated, best conducted and most Republican Univer- 
sity in the land ; and the other presides over the Commonwealth of 
Virginia. Mr. Wise left college in 1825, returning through Canada 
and New York home. He commenced the study of law by reading 



Xiv BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

Blackstone, in the school of Henry St, George Tucker, in the winter 
of 1S25-26. He remained with Judge Tucker until the fall of 1828, 
when he returned home and cast his maiden vote for General Andrew 
Jackson for President in the election of 1828. 

In 1827, whilst Mr. Wise was at Winchester, he addressed his first 
wife. Miss Ann Eliza Jennings, daughter of the Rev. O. Jennings, D. 
D. of Washington College. He became enamored of this lady whilst 
at college, and never rested until the marriage rites were celebrated, on 
the 8th day of October 1828, in the city of Nashville, Tennessee, 
where her father had been called as pastor of the Presbyterian con- 
o-ref^ation of that place. Mr. Wise had made his arrangements pre- 
viously to leaving Virginia to settle in Nashville, which he did. He 
soon formed a copartnership in the law with Thomas Duncan, Esq., 
who was soon afterwards accidentally killed in Louisiana. Mr. Wise 
had some cases in the Supreme Court of the State, and a respectable 
practice for a young man and a stranger. But still he sighed for the 
•• milk of the ocean," his " own" native Virginia. To g/atify his wife, 
he made every effort to be satisfied in Nashville. But despite all that 
he could do, he was unhappy outside his native State. There is some- 
thin^ peculiar about Virginians in this respect. We rarely if ever find 
one, no matter how well he may be doing, satisfied for any length of 
time in any State but his own. Why it is, remains yet to be solved. 
Finally, to gratify this wish of his heart, he determined, with the con- 
sent of his wife, to return to Accomack : which he did in the fall of 
1830. When he arrived home, the scenes of his boyhood exhilarated 
and enlivened a feeble frame which had almost fallen a prey to melan- 
choly. The hallowed associations of youthful days were brought 
fresh to his recollection, and once more with buoyant spirits and a 
hopeful heart, he was ready to launch forth into the world to breast 
all storms, and to meet and grapple with every obstacle. As soon as 
the' spring opened, he entered upon the duties of his profession. He 
found at the bar, as competitors, George P. Scarburg, Carter M. Brax- 
ton, P. P. Mayo, M. W. Fisher, and Vespasian Ellis, now editor of a 
paper at Washington City called the Oroau, which professed at one 
time to be the mouth-piece of the late Know Nothing party, but now 
shows strong proclivities for being an ally of Horace Greeley. Mr. 
Wise's abilities and legal proficiencies soon brought him into com- 
mand of an extensive and lucrative practice, which he continued to 
hold so long as his mind was drawn from political matters. His great 
forte as a lawyer is his great power before a jury. He has no supe- 
rior as a criminal lawyer. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. , XV 

The commencement of Mr. Wise's political life. His first 

ELECTION TO CONGRESS. DuEL WITH RiCHARD CoKE. ReMOVAL 
of THE DEPOSITS. CaPTAIN OF THE AWKWARD SQUAD.' 

There is no politician who ever lived, who has ever been half as 
much misrepresented as Henry A. Wise. Born, it is true, like a majo- 
rity of our early distinguished men, of Federal parents, yet he, as early 
as 1824, when only eighteen years old, declared himself in favor of 
Wm. H. Crawford of Georgia, the States Right candidate for Presi- 
dent. Owing to indisposition Mr. Crawford was withdrawn from the 
field, when Mr. Wise declared in favor of General Jackson, and would 
have voted for him had he been of age. In 1828, John Q,. Adams 
Henry Clay and General Jackson were candidates for the Presidency. 
He cast his maiden vote, as we have before mentioned, for General 
Jackson. He was sent from the York district in 1832 a delegate to 
the Baltimore National Democratic Convention. In that Convention 
he supported General Jackson in preference to any man, but when 
Martin Van Buren received the nomination for the Vice-Presidency, he 
arose and said, " Mr. President, in the vernacular of the negro's souir, 
' if I had had not come here, I would not have been here.' I will not 
not vote for your nominee for Vice-President, my vote shall be cast 
for Philip P. Barbour of Virginia for that office." Mr. Wise, with 
many others, voted for Jackson and Barbour. The electoral college 
of Alabama did the same thing. 

In 1832 and '33 the mania of Nullification raged. Mr. Wise es- 
poused the principle expressed in the celebrated resolutions of 1798- 
99, as reported by James Madison : '• that each State for itself is the 
judge of the infraction and of the mode and manner of redress." 
Consequently he was opposed on the one hand to the Federal heresies 
of the Proclamation, Force bill, &c., and on the other hand to the re- 
medies of South Carolina. His views in full upon this subject are 
set forth in his first address to the York district in 1833. 

We will here introduce an extract of a letter, with the comments of 
Father Ritchie upon the position Mr. Wise occupied at that time. 

Extract of a letter, from 

"Norfolk Borough, March 21. 

" I was at New Kent Court, this day week, where A. Stevenson delivered an 
excellent Speech, opposed by Mr. Robertson who also spoke ; and from what I 
could see and hear, Mr. A. Stevenson's Speech was liked much the best. On 
Monday last I was at York Court, where I heard more speaking. Mr. Henry 



XVI BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

A. "Wise from Accomack spoke for three hours, and Mr. Richard Coke replied 
to him, until he gave out, which was until night. Some parts of Mr. W.'s 
Speech bqre very hard upon Mr. Coke. Mr. W. in the first place asked Mr. C. 
if he was in favor of Nullification. Mr. C. replied in words to this elFectj if a 
State was opprfessed, she had a right to nullify. These might not be the exact 
words; but they amounted to this. Mr. W. then spoke of some letters which 
Mr. Coke had written te gentlemen on the Eastern Shore, giving them authority 
to contradict any report about his being a Nullifier — declaring that he was no 
Nullifier. — Mr. Wise asked, " If you are no Nullifier on the Eastern Shore, 
where they are opposed to it, and a Nullifier at home, where they are in favor of 
it, I do not know how you can be both." Mr. Coke then stopped Mr. Wise, 
ani said that he spoke of private letters, and he should consider it as a personal 
affair, and should treat it as suclt* Mr. Wise said, " very well, Sir, I am ready 
for you in any way ; but I insist upon it, that these letters were not private, in- 
asmuch as you authorized these gentlemen to circulate what is contained in 
them ; and no matter how disagreeable it is to you at this time, you must bear 
it." I thought they would have made a personal affair of it, but it turned out 
differently. Mr. W. also said how many copies of the " Jeffersonian and Vir- 
ginia Times" had been franked and paid for, and sent to persons in that section 
who had never ordered it — Mr. W. is opposed to Nullification, and for Virginia 
State Rights, and in favor of the present Administration. He said he had un- 
derstood that Mr. Ritchie had declared that he (Mr. R.) did not think he had 
written his Address — but Mr. W. said that was a small matter, and they could 
judge of that for themselves. He is a very clever man — about 27 years of age." 

B®^ Mr. Wise has been misinformed. We have never uttered the idea that 
he has attributed to us. We have not the pleasure of being personally ac- 
quainted with him — but every account that we have heard of him, from those in 
whose opinions we confide, is of the most favorable character. We understand 
that he possesses talents of a high order. His Address is a masterly refutation 
of many of the errors of the day — the doctrines of Consolidation as well as of 
Nallijicaiion. We had intended to lay copious extracts of it before our readers 
— but the long talks of the Orators at Washington have hitherto prevented it. 
We disagree with him in what he says of a Bank of the United States ; though 
he does not seem to relish the present Bank. Mr. Wise has been bitterly as- 
sailed by the Nullifiers — but he is fully able to defend himself. He asks no 
quarter from them — and he will give none. — Editors. 

Upon examination we find that Mr. Wise sustained the administra- 
tion of General Jackson principally to preserve the Union at that time 
from the threatening attitude of South Carolina, but still condemned 
the course of General Jackson, thinking that other and milder means 
should have been used at that particular crisis. Mr. Wise was as 
much opposed to the cause that bronght about Nullification as John C. 
Calhoun or any other citizen of South Carolina ; but after a high pro- 
tective bill had passed he thought as Mr. Calhoun did, that the bill 
was unconstitutional, and could be compromised before the ordinance 
of South Carolina was passed, as it was afterwards. In sustaining the 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. XVU 

Proclamation, therefore, he was only supporting the executive of the 
nation, and nothing more. 

In 1833, Mr. Richard Coke of Williamsburg, the former incumbent 
of the York district in Congress, was a candidate for re-election. Mr. 
Coke had represented that district as a Jackson Democrat ; but after 
the appearance of the Proclamation, he turned to be a Nullifier. 
There was an appeal made from the Western Shore, for a candidate 
to oppose Mr. Coke on the part of the Jackson party from the Eastern 
Shore. Several gentlemen were solicited, amongst whom was Mr. 
Wise, and when all others had refused to accept the nomination, he 
consented to become a candidate, and announced himself as such at 
Northumberland court, the second Monday in January 1833. He im- 
mediately wrote the address which we have before referred to. This 
document we consider thoroughly States Right, and Democratic in 
every particular, with the exception of its sanction and advocacy 
of a United S^^tates Bank. Mr. Madison and the Republican party with 
Mr. Calhoun at their head, adopted a scheme of this sort soon after 
the war of 1812, not that they considered it constitutional, but be- 
cause that party considered it expedient and as a matter of sheer ne- 
cessity. Mr. Wise, from want of experience in legislation, contended 
that if a United Slates Bank was necessary and expedient it was con- 
stitutional. This opinion was readily and quickly changed after ma- 
ture reflection. But to find a contrast of leading politicians of the 
land upon this much mooted question, we have only to cite the hosti- 
lity of Henry Clay to a United States Bank at one period of his life, 
and at a later period being its chief advocate. The speech of Mr. 
Clay, made whilst opposed to the bank, could never be answered by him 
or its advocates at any time during the popularity of that great engine 
and vehicle of political corruption. Who is to be censured most, he 
that advocates a scheme that is thought to be beneficial and whole- 
some, but finding it unconstitutional and baneful, turns from it with 
loathing disgust ; or he that supports it, knowing it to be by experience 
and by the laws of political economy the most dangerous, undermi- 
ning, unconstitutional and corrupting of all measures either State or 
Federal ? This proposition we consider a clear one ; hence it can be 
easily decided who is the most censurable, Henry Clay or Henry A. 
Wise. 

The contest between Mr. Wise and Mr. Coke was severe and acri- 
monious. The result was the election of Mr. Wise by four hundred 
ii 



Xviii ■ BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

majority and a duel with Mr. Coke. Mr. Wise accused him of great 
inconsistency, having represented the district four years as a Jackson 
Democrat, and as soon as Nullification turned up in 1833, denouncing 
Jackson and going off with Calhoun, and dating his hostility to the 
administration of the " Old Hero" as far back as the rupture in the 
cabinet in June 1831. This Mr. Wise considered the grossest incon- 
sistency, when it was a notorious fact that Mr. Coke professed to be a 
warm supporter of the Jackson administration until the mania of Nul- 
lification arose. Upon this point Mr. Coke suff'ered, and justly, se- 
verely. He was so chagrined at his defeat that nothing would atone 
his grief but blood. Mr. Coke challenged, Mr. Wise accepted. They 
fought the 25th day of January 1835, over the Eastern branch of the 
Potomac, on the road leading across the Anacostia bridge, in Mary- 
land, not far from Marlborough. Mr. John Whiting was the second 
of Mr. Coke, and Mr. John Wray the second of Mr. Wise ; both se- 
conds from Hampton, Virginia. Bailie Peyton, Eilbeck Mason and 
James Love of Kentucky, attended as the friends of Mr. Wise, and 
Dr. Hall of Washington City, as his surgeon. George Southall at- 
tended as the friend, and Dr. Byrd of Gloucester, as the surgeon of 
Mr. Coke, General Roger Jones of the army attended as the friend of 
both parties. At one o'clock P. M. they fired, Mr. Wise's ball frac- 
turing the right arm of Mr. Coke, but fortunately not maiming him 
for life. Thus ended this affair of honor. Mr. Wise was elected to 
Congress in April 1833, and in the month of October of that year 
General Jackson removed the public deposits. This act of the execu- 
tive was looked upon by many of both parties as high-handed and 
bordering on absolutism. It had the effect of driving from his side 
a number of his warmest admirers, Nullifiers and Anti-Nullifiers. And 
amongst these were John C. Calhoun and Henry A. Wise. The ex- 
citement following the removal of the deposits was tremendous, long 
continued, and of a most acrimonious nature. After much discussion 
and wrangling in the halls of Congress on the subject, seventeen De- 
mocrats of the House and several of the Senate filed out of the Jack- 
son ranks. They were called the "Awkward Squad." This was 
because they could neither go with the administration upon the remo- 
val of the deposits, nor with the Federal opposition. This act of 
General Jackson, although attended at the time with a monetary de- 
pression, eventually proved to be one of the best and most judicious 
moves any public officer ever made. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. XIX 

Re-election to congress in 1S35. Reminiscence of the death 
OF John Randolph of Roanoke. 

In the spring of 1835, Mr. Wise was again a candidate for Congress. 
He was opposed the second time by his former competitor Mr. Coke. 
Mr. Coke was only a candidate for a short time, abandoning the can- 
vass at York, and forever afterwards voting at the polls for Mr. Wise. 

Mr. Wise has been accused by his enemies of attempting to imitate 
the eccentric John Randolph of Roanoke. This is a false accusation. 
He never attempted to ape any pecularity or the eccentricities of 
any man. He is a man sui generis. Mr. Randolph, it is true, was 
elected to Congress in 1833, but died in the City of Philadelphia be- 
fore the session opened. Mr. Wise never, in all his life, saw Virginia's 
distinguished orator and biting satirist. We hazard the assertion that 
an imitator of John Randolph, in the strict sense of the term, never 
did and never will exist. What Byron said of Sheridan, we think 
equally applicable to Mr. Randolph: 

" Sighing that Nature formed but one such man, 
And broke the die — in moulding Sheridan !" . 

There was one thing that happened to Mr. Randolph that also hap- 
pened to Mr. Wise, when they took the oath as members of Congress. 
Mr. Randolph being, it is remembered, elected at the age of 24, had a 
very feminine and youthful appearance, so much so that the Speaker 
enquired of him whether he was of the constitutional age, that is, 
25. The tart reply was •' Ask my constituents, sir." John Y. Mason 
introduced Mr. Wise to Mr. Speaker Andrew Stevenson, when he 
enquired, " Where is Mr. Wise?" Mr. Wise then standing before him, 
whom he took to be one of the pages of the House. Mr. Mason 
whispered to the Speaker, and told him " that was the gentleman to 
whom he had just been introduced." The Speaker smiled, and pre- 
sented the Bible with a pleasant remark about his youthful appear- 
ance. 

In Mr. Wise's speech upon the removal of the deposits, he quoted 
a remark of Mr. Randolph, about the " rara «i?/s," the " Black Swan," 
and alluded, episodically, to the fact, that his death had not been an- 
nounced in that House, saying it was no fault of his. This called 
out, a/ew days afterwards, Mr. Randolph's successor, Judge Bouldin, 
who took the floor and commenced giving the reasons thus : " I will 



XX BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

tell my colleague the reason why" — here his head went back, the 
veins in his temples became corded, his face for a moment was dis- 
torted, and he fell back a dead man ! What is strange about this whole 
affair is. that the only allusion to the death of Mr. Randolph ever 
made in the House of Representatives, caused the death of him who 
filled his seat ! ! ! 

Presidential Campaign of 1836. Pet Bank system. Death of 
Mrs. Wise. Re-election to Congress in 1837. 

The Presidential campaign of 1836, opened with party rancor and 
animosity, running mountain high. The National Republicans or 
Federalists, who had gone for John Q.. Adams and his bill of abomi- 
nations, and his light-houses in the skies, in 1828, formed one reserve 
that wished to elect a President. They held a Convention and nomi- 
nated Gen. William Henry Harrison of Ohio, for President, and Francis 
Granger of N. Y. for the Vice Presidency. The regiment that had 
wheeled out of the Jackson line upon the issues of Nullification and 
the Removal of the Deposits, formed another reserve. These two re- 
serves at first made an effort to blend themselves into one great party. 
They for the first time agreed upon a common name, that of " Whig," 
but still they could not agree upon a common ticket ; consequently, 
the National Republicans, or Federalists, finding there was no chance 
for an amalgamation, nominated Harrison and Granger. The Nulli- 
fiers and those who had been opposed to the removal of the deposits, 
and had not confidence in the political honesty of General Jackson's 
^^ favorite^'''' Martin Van Buren, nominated for President Hugh L. White 
of Tennessee, and John Tyler of Virginia, for Vice-President. The 
Jackson Democrats put forth for President Martin Van Buren of New 
York, and Col, Richard M. Johnson of Kentucky, for Vice-President. 
The unbounded popularity and influence of Gen. Jackson insured the 
election of his '-'■favorite.'''' Van Buren and Johnson were easily elected. 
It seems that the leading Southern Democrats in 1836 would not have 
been as hostile to Mr. Van Buren as they were had they not distrusted 
him upon two questions that were of vital importance to the South. 
And those questions were the subject of slavery and the annexation 
of Texas. As it turned out, Messrs. White, Tyler, Calhoun, Poindex- 
ter, McDufiie and Wise were right in manifesting their distrust as to the 
unfitness and dishonesty of Mr. Van Buren. Although he showed no 
tangible signs of Abolitionism during his administration, yet he evi- 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. XXI 

dently retarded the annexation of Texas, and on his rejection by the 
people in 1840, he soon showed that he was hostile, and that in the 
most deadly shape, to the most cherished principles of Southern Demo- 
crats. Mr. Van Buren never would have been made President had he 
not deceived the " Old Hero" upon the Texas question. Gen. Jack- 
son had the annexation of Texas in view as early as 1828; and his 
^'favorite''' had given him every assurance whilst Secretary of State 
and Vice-President, that he co-operated with him upon that favorite 
question, Mr. Van Buren kept the cloven foot of deception concealed 
from public demonstration until after his defeat. Then it was shown 
in all its frightful and hideous deformities ; and with disastrous con- 
sequences to the Democratic party in 1848. 

During the spring of 1837, before Mr. Wise reached home from 
Washington, his dwelling-house with nearly all of his valuable books 
and papers were consumed by fire. His family were removed to a 
friend's house in the village of Drummondtown, ana that house, in a 
very mysterious manner, was set on fire also. This so affected the 
nervous system of his wife, that she never recovered from it, and died 
in the month of June following. She was the mother of seven chil- 
dren, but left only four living. Mary Elizabeth, wife of Dr. Alexan- 
der Y. P. Garnett of Washington City; Obadiah Jennings (the eldest 
son), who received the appointment of Secretary of Legation to Ber- 
lin during the administration of Mr. Pierce ; Henry Alexander Wise, 
Jr., who, at the writing of this sketch, was attending the Theological 
Seminary at Alexandria, Virginia ; and Ann Jennings Wise, the second 
daughter, is now with her father at Richmond, and who was an infant 
at the death of her mother. 

In 1837 Mr. Wise was a candidate for re-election without opposi- 
tion. He stood before his district as the advocate of the principles 
espoused by Hugh Lawson White and John Tyler. That is, opposed 
to the Pet Bank system, Benton's Sub-treasury, and the reference of 
Abolition petitions to special or any committee ; and the fearless ad- 
vocate for the annexation of Texas, a tariff for revenue only, &c. 

The Graves and Cilley Duel. 

Upon no subject has there been so much misunderstanding, misre- 
presentation, and wilful and unblushing falsehood as upon the unfor- 
tunate meeting between Messrs. Graves and Cilley. And upon no sub- 
ject have there ever been such general excitement and deep-grounded 



XXll BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

prejudices aroused. It was the peculiar and unavoidable misfortune 
of Henry A. Wise to be connected with this sad affair. Not that he 
could not have avoided it, but not as an honorable man, in an honor- 
able way, to an importunate friend. This subject has been a fruitful 
theme with the enemies and traducers of Mr. Wise, to arouse, excite 
and prejudice the popular mind. This effort of his foes has to some 
extent been successful with those who were ignorant of the particu- 
lars of this duel, its antecedents, &c. We have used every exertion 
to get possession of all the facts connected with the affair, which we 
now submit in. as condensed a form as possible : 

In 1837 political excitement was greater than was ever known in 
the Congress of the United States. The House of Representatives 
was composed of a number pf able and fiery debaters, and the issues 
then before that body frequently brought the talent of the House in col- 
lision. The Hon. Jonathan Cilley of Maine took issue on one occasion, 
upon some subject, with James Watson Webb, editor of the Courier 
and Enquirer, of N. Y., and made what he considered a legitimate at- 
tack upon him. Mr. Webb took exceptions to the language used, and de- 
manded satisfaction. He called upon the Hon. Wm. J. Graves, of Ky., 
to act as his friend. Mr. Graves, without the knowledge, counsel, ad- 
vice, information, or suspicion of Mr. Wise, carried a letter from Mr. 
Webb to Mr. Cilley. The letter that was carried has never to this 
day been seen by Mr. Wise. Mr. Cilley declined to receive the letter, 
as Mr. Graves alleged, on the ground that he did not choose to be held 
accountable for words spoken in debate, and would not recognize Mr. 
Webb's right to call upon him for words spoken of and concerning 
him on the floor of the House. All this had happened at least a week 
before Mr. Wise knew a syllable of it. Finally Mr. Graves took ex- 
ceptions to Mr. Cilley's not receiving the letter of Mr. Webb at his 
hands, and consulted with Mr. Clay upon that point several days 
before he mentioned the subject to Mr. Wise. When Mr. Graves 
came to Mr. Wise for the first time for advice, he said to Mr. Wise 
that his only anxiety was to do his full duty to his principal, and 
nothing more. Mr. Wise then advised him that Mr. Cilley's ground 
was perfectly tenable, and could not be excepted to, as he did not 
choose to be held accountable for a constitutional privilege — for 
words spoken in debate — because he did not consider that he had as- 
sailed the character of James Watson Webb as a gentleman. This 
explanation satisfied Mr. Graves in that respect ; but he said Mr. Cil- 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. . XXIII 

ley had expressed his grounds to him verbally, and then refused to 
commit them to writing in the form which he had inferred from the 
first interview with him. Mr, Wise then advised Mr. Graves to ad- 
dress Mr, Cilley respectfully, in writing, and request of him to say 
upon what ground it was he then declined to accept the note at his 
hands from James Watson Webb, Tjiis Mr. Graves did, but not 
through Mr. Wise. Mr. Cilley's answer was unsatisfactory in this: 
that it did not admit what Mr. Graves had stated to have passed ver- 
bally between them in their first interview. This raised a question, 
seemingly,. of veracity. But still Mr. Wise advised Mr. Graves not to 
go farther than to demand whether Mr. Cilley meant to assail his state- 
ment as untrue. Mr. Graves then saw Mr. Clay as his chief adviser, 
and after some day or t\f o of delay, came back to Mr. Wise to take 
his challenge to Mr. Cilley. Mr. Wise declined to do so, and begged 
him to sleep upon it at least for one night. The next morning he went 
to Mr. Wise's room, and again urged him to bear Mr. Cilley his chal- 
lenge, Mr, Wise then discussed the matter, and told him he saw no 
reason qr ground for a challenge save that of a question of veracity : that 
if he called upon that ground, he was sure Mr. Cilley would disclaim all 
impeachment of his veracity, and there would be an end to the whole 
affair. And in doing this, Mr. Cilley was still not bound to disclaim 
imputation upon the character of James Watson Webb : — he could 
plead his privilege only, without affirming or disclaiming anything as 
to him. He then, at the instance of Mr. Wise, drew up his challenge, 
placing it expressly on the ground that Mr. Cilley had assailed his 
statement as to what occurred when he first carried Webb's note. 
Mr. Wise again refused to be the bearer of the challenge. Mr, Graves 
then urged him to go with him to Mr. Clay's room. They went, and 
submitted each their respective differences of opinion, when Mr. Clay 
took the challenge which Mr, Graves had written, and pronounced it 
to be improper, because he had based his call upon the wrong ground — 
that of veracity. Mr. Clay said that there was but one issue in the 
case, and that was, that Mr. Cilley had declined to receive Mr. James 
Watson Webb's note at the hands of Mr. Graves ; and unless Mr. Cil- 
ley would disclaim imputation upon Mr. Webb as a gentleman, that 
he. Graves, was bound by the code of honor to step into Webb's shoes, 
and to challenge directly for that cause. Mr. Clay then threw the 
challenge aside, as written by Mr. Graves, and drew the form of one, 
which was afterwards taken by Mr. Cilley, with his own hand and 
pen. Mr. Graves then copied it again, and proposed to Mr. Wise to 



XXIV BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

be the bearer. He declined again, on the ground that he did not ap- 
prove the form in which the challenge was written ; and, moreover, 
as the challenge then stood, it was upon a point of punctillio which 
never could be adjusted in any case without blood. 

By this period of the interview, Mr. Menefee of Kentucky had come 
in, and sided with Mr. Clay against Mr. Wise. Mr. Wise still declined 
to bear the challenge. Mr. Graves appealed to Messrs. Clay and Menefee 
to bear witness that on one occasion, in the absence of Mr. Wise from 
the House of Representatives, he had, without asking the right or the 
wrong of Mr. Wise's controversy, taken up his personal quarrel, and 
was ready to fight for him, — that he had more confidence in him than 
any one else, as his friend, on the ground; and that if he (Wise) suf- 
fered him to go upon the field without guarding his life and his ho- 
nor, and he was brought back a corpse, he desired his wife, his chil- 
dren and his friends to know that he (Wise) had failed to stand by 
him after he knew he was determined to fight, whether he (Wise) 
went to the ground with him or not. Is there an honest, courageous 
and chivalrous heart that beats in the breast of man that could have 
withstood such an appeal, coming as it did. under such circumstances, 
and at that particular time ? 

After this appeal had been made by Mr. Graves, Mr. Wise told him 
that if nothing else would do him but to fight, and that against his 
advice, he would consent to guard his life and his honor. Mr. Wise 
then carried the challenge to Mr. Cilley, copied by Mr. Graves from 
Mr. Clay's manuscript. Mr. W^ise then resolved in his own mind to 
prevent, if possible, the hostile meeting. After nightfall, General 
George W. Jones brought an acceptance, and the terms proposed — 
eighty yards, with rifles. Mr. Wise demurred. Mr. Clay instantly 
exclaimed : '-No Kentuckian can back out from a rifle." Mr. Wise's 
object still being that of delay, he met Gen. Jones, the next morning 
and said he must have time to go to Philadelphia for a rifle, as he did 
not know where else to get one that was reliable. Mr. Jones replied: 
"Certainly, sir, there must be a gun which can be relied on in the 
whole District of Columbia!" 'At this answer Mr. Wise was some- 
what vexed, and replied, "if you know of one, sir, T would be glad 
if you would furnish me with it." Thereupon, the next morning, a 
rifle, powder flask, bullet moulds, &c., were found upon Mr. Wise's 
table, with a polite note tendering the rifle, &c., to Mr. Graves. This 
was no doubt done bona fide upon the part of Gen. Jones, but it cer- 
tainly had the bad efi"ect of hastening the duel. This doubtless would 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. XXV 

not have happened had General Jones understood the object which 
Mr. Wise had in view — that of delay. The arrangements being thus 
far made, there was no lime for parleying. • Mr. Graves went out the. 
morning previous to the meeting to practice with the rifle. He proved 
himself to be a very bad shot at a mark. His hand w^as so huge and 
clumsy, his fingers so course, that he could not ^^ iaste^ a hair trigger. 
He would invariably fire before the word was given, and could not 
hit a barn door at eighty yards. By this time Mr. Wise had procured 
a fine, large rifle from Mr. John C. Rives of the Glohe^ and filled it 
with vinegar the night before the duel, for the purpose of cleansing it 
of rust ; and by the appointed time Mr. Wise had Mr. Graves ready 
and upon the field. He was accompanied by Henry A Wise as his 
armed second, aided by Hon. John J. Crittenden and Hon. Richard 
H. Menefee, of Kentucky. Mr. Cilley was accompanied by Hon. 
George W. Jones, as his armed second, aided by Mr. Schaumburg 
and Mr. Bynum, and by Dr. Duncan, as surgeon. Before these gen- 
tlemen went out, propositions of adjustment were written for the 
guide of Mr. Graves' second, in case an adjustment should be pro- 
posed. Mr. Graves won the position, Mr. Cilley the word. Mr. 
Graves' second selected the west, because the wind was setting from 
the northwest, from a knowledge of the fact that Mr. Cilley was a 
crack shot, thinking that he would not make an allowance for the wind 
against his ball, the variation of which, from the effects of the wind 
in the distance of eighty yards, would be six inches. This arrange- 
ment, and nothing else, saved the life of Mr. Graves. Mr. Cilley 
stood east ; Mr. Graves west. They fired at one o'clock, P. M,, nearly 
across the rays of the sun ; Mr. Graves' face in the light, Mr. Cilley's 
in the shade. Mr. Graves was ordered not to fire until he had good 
siRht, and at the word " three." At the first fire Mr. Graves obeyed 
orders coolly, but clearly missed his aim. Mr. Cilley's ball struck the 
ground about forty yards from the place in which he stood. The 
loss of his fire evidently made him anxious for another exchange of 
shots. A second shot being determined on, Mr. Menefee placed the 
rifle in the hands of Mr. Graves, and upbraided him for being so slow. 
All being ready, and the combatants appearing cool and collected, at 
the word " fire,'^ the rifle of Mr. Graves went off, his ball striking 
the ground about ten paces from his feet. Mr. Cilley raised delibe- 
rately and shot with dead aim at about two and a half count. All 
eyes were then turned to Mr. Graves, who dropped the breach of his 
rifle as his second ran up to him, thinking he was certainly hit ; but 
iii 



XXVI BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

it turned out that he had only been pulling at the trigger^ when he 
very calmly blew into the muzzle, exclaiming : " Why, the gun is 
off," He did not think he had fired. This mortified him. Then 
came his time for demanding a third fire, for the same cause that in- 
duced Mr. Cilley to desire a second shot. Mr. Gravss demanded, 
and would have a third //-e. Had Mr. Graves' coat been unbuttoned^ 
the second ball of Mr. Cilley's rifle would have passed through the 
lapel of his coat. This conclusion was arrived at from the position 
in which Mr. G. stood and v/here the ball struck the fence behind 
him. 

As to the propositions of settlement, they were never made, excepJ! 
to enquire what was then to be done. Mr. Cilley yielded nothing ; 
and there was still cause for the duel unmoved, unexplained,, unad- 
justed, and a point of punctillio vv^hieh can never be explained. Mr. 
Cilley was obliged to demand a second and Mr. Graves a third fire. 
Being ready for the fire, they both appeared cool an^' collected, and 
there was never a fairer exchange of shots. Mr. Cilley fired a little 
first, and in one fourth of a second received his mortal wound in front 
of the left hip, the ball passing entirely through him, severing,, no 
doubt, the aorta. " His rifle fell out of his hands, he beckoned to 
his second, and died in a fev/ r^omenls, without a struggle or appar 
rently a pang." 

After the death of the unfortonate Cilley, the public mind was so- 
excited and indignant by the innumerable falsehoods and sland&rs ema- 
nating from the misinformed, and the enemies of those who were en- 
gaged at owQ time in an attempt at reconciliation and adjustment, thati 
the House of Representatives appointed a committee of inves'tigatiori,. 
the report of which now stands as a public record. When the con(> 
mittee sat, one of the objects was' to tbrov/ the onus of the whole 
affair upon Mr. Wise, Mr. Clay heard of the intentions &f the com- 
mittee — told Mr. Wise to tell them to cali upon hina — that although 
he had shed tears over the "^nine days bubble," yet he was cognizant 
of all the connected facts, and would take great pleasure, a6 aM times, 
in setting the misrepresented in their true position. 

Mr. James Watson Webb, in 1842, alleged, in the Courier &nd En- 
quirer, that Mr. Wise had instigated the duel. Such a charge was 
totally unfounded, unjust and cowardly, from the fact that anything 
of the sort should emanate from a man like Mr. Webb^ who was di- 
rectly and knowingly connected with the whole affair. Soon after 
this slanderous and malicious allegation appeared in the Courier and 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. XXVll 

Enquirer, Mr. Wise published the facts of the case in the Madisonian. 
Mr. Ciay, finding that explanation might injure him for the Presidency 
in 1S44, or some future time, wrote to Mr. Graves, and got him to say 
that he (Clay) had no part whatsoever in the advice, counsel, or pre- 
paration of the duel. Mr. Clay published that letter in the National 
Intelligencer as true. Whereupon Mr. Wise wrote to him categorical 
questions, which he placed in the hands of Dr. Linn, of Missouri. 
Mr. Clay replied, and admitted his whole part in the affair, and gene- 
rally justified Mr. Wise as well as himself. For this act of injustice, 
Mr. Wise could never (nor justly) forgive Mr. Clay. How unjust and 
unkind is it to accuse innocent men of being the instigators of that 
which is at all times exceedingly offensive to the masses ! 

Mr. Wise used all possible and honorable means to prevent a hostile 
meeting between these gentlemen ; and never did he consent to ac- 
company Mr. Graves until he told him that he was determined to go 
upon the field, whether Mr. Wise accompanied him or not. 

Mr. Wise once put a challenge into the hands of Hon. S. S. Prentiss, 
of Mississippi, for Hon. Mr. Gholson, of the same State ; but Mr, Pren- 
tiss refused to carry it because he said the onus was upon Mr. Gholson 
and not upoij Mr. Wiss. • 

Mr. Wise also challenged Hon. Thos. H. Bayly of Acomaek, but 
he refused to accept, upon what grounds we have never heard. 

Re-election to Congress in 1839. Presidential Campaign en 
1840. Second marriage. 

In 1839 Mr. Clay, no doubt, was more anxious to receive the nomi- 
nation for the Presdency than he was ever before or afterwards. And 
to make the chances of his nomination more certain, aud his election 
a fixed fact, it was necessary in the opinion of himself and friends, to 
procure the support and influence of that portion of the Democratic 
party that had favored the election, in 1836, of Hugh L. White and 
John Tyler. For this purpose to be secured. Judge White had to be 
consulted. Mr. Wise being a bosom friend of Judge White, Mr. Clay 
got him to make the requisite enquiries. In reply to the enquiry whe- 
ther or not he had any aspirations for the Presidency? he said he had 
none, and should not have allowed his name to have been placed in 
that situation in 1836, had it not been to assert his political and per- 
sonal independence. As for supporting Mr. Yan Buren, whom he con- 
sidered unsound in toto upon the questions of Slavery and Texas, he 



XXVlll BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

could not think of such a thing. As for Mr. Clay, he held him in the 
highest personal consideration, but politically, as he understood his 
policy, they were diametrically opposed to each other, upon the five 
great cardinal principles that divided the Federal and Republican par- 
ties. He could not support Mr. Clay or any other man Avho advocated 
a U. States Bank, Protective Tariff, Internal Improvement by the Ge- 
neral Government, Distribution, and the right of Congress to abolish 
slavery in the District of Columbia and the Territories. Mr. Clay au- 
thorized Mr. Wise to say to Judge White that he stood thus upon 
these five cardinal issues: 

1. Bank. "He said he had not changed his opinions since 1816. 
That he had avowed some change in respect to the constitutionality 
of that measure, which he had always regretted. That he was sorry 
he had not adhered to the grounds that he had first taken upon that 
subject. But then, though he believed in the constitutional power of 
Congress to incorporate a Bank for Treasury purposes, yet such was 
the force of circumstances and events, existing then in 1839, he was 
compelled to conclude that a re-charter for many years would be im- 
politic, unsafe, and inexpedient. It would never be safe to re-char- 
ter a U. States Bank whilst there was a popular minority even op- 
posed to its institution. The friends of such an incorporation were 
bound to await the arbitrament of enlightened public opinion." — " And 
that he would never again recommend a re-charter of the U. States 
Bank, unless it should be called for by the popular voice, approaching 
such unanimity as would increase general confidence and safety." 

2. On the Tariff he prided himself as being "its Pacificator, in be- 
ing the author of the Tariff Compromise of 1832. He considered 
that the North had obtained its consideration in the first five years of 
the act, and that it would now be bad faith to deprive the South of 
the benefits it had bargained for in reduction and in equalization of 
duties upon protected and unprotected articles alike." He emphati- 
cally pledged himself not to disturb his own compromise, but to allow 
it a full and fair operation. 

3. Upon Internal Improvements, he said, " the great design of his 
' American^ system, as it had been called, was to stimulate the States 
to enterprises of improvement : that he had never thought that these 
works could be accomplished as economically and as faithfully by the 
General Government as by the States, and by private companies and 
individuals acting under State authority. That he had effectually at- 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. XXIX 

tained his end. By t!ie appropriations to works, and to surveys al- 
ready then made, the States had been stimulated to intoxication. 
That they had run into an enormous debt of 200 millions. He 
would rather then assuage the fever, and would arrest all farther sti- 
mulus until the State debts were paid." 

4. Upon the subject of Distribution of the Proceeds of the Public 
Lands, he said, " He never proposed a distribution of the proceeds, 
except when there was a large surplus in the treasury. That by his 
bill in 1832, he had limited the operation to such a time, only five 
years, as would exhaust the surplus. As long as the revenue was re- 
quired for the payment of the public debt, or for any proper object of 
expenditure, he would never propose a distribution amongst the States. 
There was then, 1S39, a debt of about forty millions, and likely to 
be a deficiency of revenue unless the tariff was raised, which could 
not be done without violating his compromise. It was morally cer- 
tain, then, that if he was nominated and elected^ there would be no 
surplus during his term. He would not distribute a deficiency at all." 

5. On the subject of Slavery, he admitted that he had advocated the 
opinion that Congress had power to abolish slavery in the District of 
Columbia and in the Territories ; but further remarked, that he had 
openly avowed since that time, in the Senate, that he regarded the 
exercise of that power by Congress, without the consent of the States 
of Virginia and Maryland, inexpedient and dangerous, and that he 
would resist the wrong with arms ; that he would resist the exercise 
of the power, as if the power was unconstitutional. 

Thus we find Mr. Clay in 1839, although on constitutional grounds 
opposed to the Democratic party upon every cardinal issue, yet pledg- 
ing himself to be practically with that party. These pledges being 
given by Mr. Clay through Mr. Wise to Judge White and his friends, 
they immediately advocated his nomination in preference to that of Mr. 
Van Buren. But before the pledges were made, Judge White predicted 
that Mr. Clay would be shelved by the influence of Mr. Webster, and his 
influence by what was called the " Triangular Correspondence." This 
name was given to a correspondence that had sprung up in Rochester, 
Utica and New York for the purpose of throwing a damper upon the 
claims of Mr. Clay previous to the meeting of the National Whig 
Convention at Harrisburg. Judge White was right in his predictions. 
The name of General Scott was used to defeat Mr. Clay through the 
Webster influence ; William H. Harrison and John Tyler receiving 



XXX BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. » 

the nomination. But before the Harrisbnrg Convention met, and af- 
ter Mr. Clay had made his Anti-Whig pledges to Jndge White, he pre- 
pared an elaborate speech, the notes of which he showed to Mr. Wise 
previous to going to the Taylorsville dinner. Mr. Clay delivered this 
speech with great force, .beauty of style, and with the happiest effect. 
Mr. Wise was invited with Mr. Clay to attend the Taylorsville festi- 
val, but it so happened he could not go, but wrote thus to the com- 
mittee of invitation : That " the Presidency could not add one cubit 
to his statue, and I wish all the world could be there to hear him." 
Mr. Wise wrote thus, and wished thus, because he knew what Mr. 
Clay would say, as he had just made the foregoing pledges and shown 
him the prepared notes from which he would speak. The policy 
which he promised to 'carry out, should he be made President, was, 
beyond question, practically Democratic. Moreover, there was a de- 
sire to get Mr. Clay back into the ranks from which the '' Puritan" 
had enticed him, and with his powerful arm to strike Nationalism or 
Whiggery a crushing blow. This intention was certainly laudable, 
righteous and patriotic. When the Nationals or Whigs. met in Con- 
vention at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, having largely the majority 
over the anti Van Buren Democrats, they claimed the privilege of 
placing on the head of their ticket General Harrison. And as John 
Tyler had been upon the ticket with Judge White in 1S36, the anti 
Van Buren Democrats, knowing that the Senate of the United States 
was nearly divided upon many issues of momentous importance, 
claimed the right to nominate a man who, by his casting vote in the 
Senate, would guard and protect the principles of tlie States Right 
party. Consequenty Mr. Tyler was placed upon the ticket for the 
Vice-Presidency by the anti Van Buren or States Rights Democrats. 
They could safely do this because the Nationals or Whigs were 
pledged by their greatest leader, Henry Clay, agxiinst Bank, Tariff, 
Internal Improvement. Distribution, Abolition of slavery in the District 
of Columbia and the Territories by the power of Congress, &c. 
W^hen the Nationals or Whigs assented that Mr. Tyler should be 
placed on the ticket for the Vice-Presidency, with General Harrison, 
it was considered a sure guarantee of the pledges made by Mr. Clay. 
Mr. Tyler received the nomination as a sort of compromise, indepen- 
dently of Mr. Clay's pledges, through the instrumentality of Mr. 
Wise. Yet this compromise was not effected without some diffi- 
culty by the anti Van Buren Democrats who distrusted the Nation- 
als or Whigs from a knowledge of their antecedents, notwithstand- 



. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. XXXI 

ing their pledges. This was arranged by Mr. Wise, very adroitly and 
justly. William C. Rives had expunged Mr. Tyler from the United 
States Senate, and in turn had become a Conservative late in the day 
upon the Specie Circular, and appealed to the opposition votes in the 
Virginia Legislature to send him back to the Senate. The question 
then arose before that body, " Shall the victim or the iiisirument of ex- 
punging be sent to the Senate ?" But what was strange about the affair 
was, that Mr. Clay and his friends, favored the return of Mr. Rives to the 
Senate. At that time Mr. Wise had a few friends in the Virginia Legis- 
lature, at the head of whom was John M. Gregory now of Richmond. 
These friends held the balance of power in that body at that time. The 
day for an election of United States Senator finally came off, when the 
ballotings comparatively were almost as numerous as they were for 
Speaker at the meeting of the 34th Congress, when Richardson, Banks 
and Fuller were candidates — and for some time with the same effect. 
The Legislature refusing to elect Mr. Rives, caucuses were held at 
Washington City and emissaries sent to Richmond; but still no election 
could be had. Finally it was found out that Mr. Wise and his friends 
checked their operations, and then an efibrt was made to bully Mm into 
subjection and party influence, but to no purpose. The party at 
Washington then arraigned Mr. Wise in caucus, when he defended 
his position by telling them that '• he never intended as long as it v/as 
in his power to prevent it, that the instrument of expanction should be 
placed over its victim by Whig or anti expunging votes." At last Mr. 
Wise suggested a compromise; and it was, that his friends would allow 
Mr. Rives to be elected, if Mr. Clay and his friends would allow Mr. 
Tyler to be placed on the ticket with General Harrison, to preside over 
Mr. Rives, and by his casting vote guard the cherished principles of 
the States Rights Democracy. This proposition was readily assented 
to, but unavoidably by the Whig party. And but for Mr. Tyler be- 
ing placed upon the Whig ticket in 1840, Mr. Wise would have re- 
mained neutral in that contest. He never would have voted for Har- 
rison and Granger regardless of the pledges of Mr. Clay. He was 
from the beginning a Tyler advocate, knowing that Mr. Tyler was an 
undeviating and unflinching defender of States Rights. It was under- 
stood that if Mr. Rives was elected to the Senate, that Mr. Tyler should 
be the nominee for Vice-President. These facts will certainly show- 
to the world that the election of John Tyler to the Presidency, was the 
overthrow of the United States Bank and many other odious Federal 
favorites ; and will account for Mr. Wise's being the main stay and 



XXXU BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

bulwark of the Tyler administration, which will compare in point of 
ability to any, Jas. K. Polk's not excepted. Mr. Wise was actuated in 
the course he took in 1840, through the most strictly Southern Rights 
conception of the Constitution. And through Mr. Wise, as we have 
before stated, John Tyler saved the country from Yan Burenism, which, 
like Know Nothingism, is but another name for Abolitionism, or the 
essence and quintessence of all that is rotten, corrupt and loath- 
some. '^ 

On the 4th of July 1840, Mr. Wise was in the city of Philadelphia, 
and uttered that sentiment whicli became so general a watchword of 
influence, " The Union of the Whigs for the sake of the Union." 
This was a piece of pure philosophy, as well as a watchword of party. 
It recommended a union of the Whigs, or those who stood upon the 
pledges that Mr. Clay had given to Judge White through Mr. Wise, 
with the National Republican W^higs, not for thetnselves but for the 
Union. This expression, in fact, was a hint to the Nationals or Whigs, 
that they were to respect and sustain the principles of the Democratic 
party. That they were not to use their party for a selfish policy, 
but to unite with the Democracy to protect the country against the 
party of Martin Van Buren. The convictions arrived at by Mr. Wise, 
and that portion of the Democratic party which acted with him, were 
as true as prophecies, and by his almost superhuman exertions in plac- 
ing John Tyler upon the Harrisburg ticket, he saved Texas and the 
Union, and placed the country and the Democratic party in an attitude 
that insured their success brilliant under the banner of Polk and Dallas 
in 1844. 

In November 1840, Mr. Wise married his second wife, Miss Sarah, 
third daughter of the Hon. John Sergeant of Philadelphia. 

Extra Session of Congress, 1841. Rejection for the Mission 
TO France. Re-election to Congress. Elected Minister to 
Rio Janeiro. Returns Home in 1847. 

The last session of Congress that met under Van Buren was in 1840 
and '41. In the spring of 1841 Mr. Wise met with Mr. Clay and 
Thomas W. Gilmer soon after the election, and was congratulating 
himself to Mr. Clay thus : Well, sir, said he, " We have fought a good 
fight in Virginia, sir, and although we did not exactly win the victory, 
we came off with the honors of war." Mr. Clay replied : "I congra- 
tulate myself, sir, that Virginia has gone for the enemy." Why, said 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. XXXIU 

Mr. Wise, " I thought you once said, you would prefer defeat with 
your mother State for you, to victory with her voice against you." 
"Sir," said Mr. Clay, "we will no longer be embarrassed by her 
peculiar opinions.'' This was the language and sentiment of that 
great, adroit, astute and disappointed politician Henry Clay. Mr. 
Clay's interpretation of the whole matter was this: as he had not re- 
ceived the nomination for the Presidency over General Harrison at 
the Harrisburg Convention, he no longer considered himself bound 
by his pledges to Judge White. The question now arises, would he 
have abided those pledgesliad he been made President? What does 
the philosophic politician say? For ourselves we shall not hazard an 
opinion of the man of whom John C. Breckenridge said, " His country- 
men had wove for him a laurel wreath, and with common hands had 
placed it upon his venerable brow and sent him crowned to history." 
The first thing that was done after the Log Cabin triumph in 1S40, was 
to call an extra session of Congress — so anxious were the successful 
party to commence the war of extermination, and disvow every pledge 
to which they had sworn eternal fidelity, and promised a sacred allegi- 
ance. Very soon after Mr. Wise reached Washington in the spring of 
1841, he saw that it was evidently the intention of the victors, under 
the leadership of Mr. Clay, to call an extra session. To make all ne- 
cessary arrangements for this purpose, they assembled in caucus, and 
gave evident signs by what policy they were dictated and influenced. 
Mr. Wise not only opposed the extra session, which was gotten up to 
snatch a bank charter from the arbitrament of enlightened public opi- 
nion, which was not be waited for, but to pass harbor and river im- 
provement bills ; to distribute a deficiency in the Treasury ; to revise 
and increase the Tarift'; to violate the Compromise of 1832; to give 
new life to Protection ; and to agitate a Slavery issue ; but he opposed 
the whole Federal scheme from beginning to end, in a speech deli- 
vered in the House of Representatives in the month of January pre- 
vious to the inauguration of General Harrison, and at a time when the 
Whig party had just swept nearly every State in the Union. 

Immediately after the death of President Harrison, Mr. Wise was 
the first man that rushed to the side of President Tyler and advised 
him by all means to veto the United States Bank bill, and use every 
effort to procure the speedy annexation of Texas. Mr. Tyler was de- 
nounced as a traitor by a party themselves false and faithless to the 
most sacred pledges. 

Mr. Tyler's political career, which has been eminently States Right 



XXXIV BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

and Conservative, stands now upon the public records of the nation 
for the judgment of posterity. 

In 1842 Mr. Wise's name was sent to the United States Senate, 
through the instrumentality of his friend. Bailie Peyton, for the mis- 
sion to Prance. A Whig Senate rejected him. In the spring of 1843 
he was a candidate for re-election. Mr. Hill Carter of Shirley, was 
his opponent, who was induced to run by a Whig clique in the city 
of Richmond ; but although the district had just given Harrison and 
Tyler IGOO majority, they sustained Mr. Wise against a Whig Senate 
and triumphantly returned him to Congress by liis old majority. 400. 
On Mr. Wise's return to Congress it was discovered that his physical 
health was giving away rapidly from the constant excitement of about 
tea years. Consequently his friends sent his name again to the Senate 
for the Court of Rio Janeiro. The same iniiuence that had defeated 
him for the French mission was about to be brought against his name 
again, with the additional ofience he had committed in denouncing 
the great leader of the Whig party, Henry Clay, in his then recent 
canvass with Mr. Hill Carter. But before any decision was made in 
his case, William S. Archer, Senator from Virginia, sought an inter- 
view with Mr. Wise, and asked him, why was it he had been so bitter 
in his late canvass against the apostle of Whiggery, Henry Clay ? Mr. 
Wise then enquired of him "if the French mission, the Brazilian 
missioif and all the rest of the missions belonged to Mr. Clay ? And 
was subserviency to him a necessary qualification for office ? Were 
personal ditferences, and not public considerations, to govern in select- 
ing foreign ministers? That it was the office of a Senator to enquire, 
not whether the nomination is fit, is he faithful to the country, but is 
he a friend of a political favorite who was not in power? In conclu- 
sion, he informed Mr. Archer to go back to his friends and tell them 
that if they would act like men worthy to be called friends of their 
idol, they would resent his insults, and would do so in their proper per- 
sons, and would not do it by abusing their public offices." 

Mr. Archer made no report to the caucus, but demanded that Mr. 
Wise should be sent to Rio Janeiro, which was done. 

On the 8th day of February 1844, he resigned his seat in Congress, 
and sailed from New York for Rio in the month of May following his 
resignation. His course in Brazil met with the entire approbation of 
Presidents Tyler and Polk, and their Secretaries of State, Calhoun and 
Buchanan. He returned home in October 1847. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. XXXV 

Retires to private life. State Elector for the State in 1848. 
Election to the State Convention. Death of his second wife. 
Elector again for the State in 1852. Third marriage. Per- 
sonal appearance. Conclusion. 

After Mr. Wise returned from Brazil he retired to private life, in- 
tending to resume his profession, havmg been in public life from 1833 
to 1817. But the campaign between Cass and Taylor coming on, he 
was called by the Democratic party of the State to act as one of the 
electors at large. He immediately buckled on his armor and went 
boldly to work. In 1850 he w^as elected to the State Convention 
which revised the Constitution. His course there is recently known. 
During the session of the Convention he received intelligence of the 
death of his second wife. She was the mother of seven children, 
leaving at her death only four living ; Richard Alsop, Ellen, John 
Sergeant, and Spencer Wise. 

In the month of November 1853, Mr. Wise was married the third 
time, to Miss Mary EHzabeth Lyons of the city of Richmond, sister 
of Mr. James Lyons, a distinguished lawyer of that place. 

We shall see, in future pages of this volume, under what circum- 
stances and in what manner, he was elected in May 1855, by the peo- \ 
pie, Governor of the Commonwealth ofi Virginia for four years, com- 
mencing January the 1st, 1856. 

Mr. Wise is five feet eleven inches high ; his average weight is 130 
pounds ; he is remarkably lean ; was originally fair skinned, but is now 
swarthy; his hair is a light auburn, and was, when young, almost 
flaxen, which he generally wears long, and behind his ears; his head 
is large, wnth great depth between the temples; his forehead is low, 
but broad ; his eyes large, gray and deep set, arched by a heavy and 
remarkably expressive brow, which by turns shows all the workings 
of the inner man ; his nose is large and prominent, and is w^hat might 
be termed a Virgiiiia nose; his mouth is capacious; his lips rather 
thick; his jaws lank and florid; chin broad and prominent, with fur- 
rough from the centre downwards; he was originally very strait and 
active, but begins to stoop a little. Upon the whole he is not a hand- 
some man, but one that will in any assemblage impress the beholder 
with his manly and defiant features. He is an excessive chewer of 
tobacco, but never smokes, and rarely drinks anything of an alcoholic 
character. Mr. Wise is remarkably abstemious and regular in all his 
habits except chewing tobacco. 



XXXVl BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

Thus we have sketched, in as succinct a manner as possible, the life 
of one of the most illustrious men ever reared in this commonwealth. 
Mr. Wise combines qualities that eminently befit him to steer the helm 
of State through troubled times, especially through this threatening cri- 
sis. Thoroughly acquainted and largly experienced in the. machinery 
of government, possessing wide and comprehensive views of the re- 
quirements of the nation, firm, decided and inflexible, the fearless tri- 
bune of the people, he is competent to the highest -duties of State. 
His course, and triumphant defence of the Democratic faith in the late 
gubernatorial campaign in this State, entitle him to the highest consi- 
sideration and lasting endearment of all who love and wish to per- 
petuate the Union of the States. 

Jefferson has made his memory immortal as the author of the 
Declaration of Independence and Religious Toleration ; Mason as the 
author of the Bill of Rights ; Jackson by severing Bank and Govern- 
ment ; and Henry A. Wise by "crushing out," from all law-abiding 
States, that most detestable, insidious, loathsome, Protean-like, bane- 
ful, and contemptible of all isms — Know Nothingism. He is the 
great benefactor of the people of the nineteenth century. Long may 
he live to enjoy with his fellow citizens the fruits of his labours. 
May he wear, with republican simplicity and fidelity, the honors of 
his country, and preserve unspllied and untarnished those that still 
await him. 



A HISTORY 



OF THE 



POLITICAL CAMPAIGN 



IN VIRGINIA 



Iiq" 18 5 5; 



WITH A 



BIOaRAPHICAL SKETCH OF 



HENRY A. WISE: 



BY JAMES P. HAMBLETON, M. D. 



J. W. RANr>OLPH, 

121 MAIN STREET, RICHMOND, VA 
1B56. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by 

JAMES P. HAMBLETON, 

[n the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, in and for the 

Eastern District of Virginia. 



JOHN NOWLAN, PRINTER, 



TO THE 

DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF VIRGINIA, 

FOR THEIR UNFLINCnma DEVOTION TO THEIR TIME HONORED 

PKINCIPLES: 

THE CONSTITUTION AND STATES RIGHTS 

AND FOR THEIR UNCOMPEOMlSINa HOSTILITY TO ALL ISMS 
OPPOSED TO THE 

PURE JEFFERSONIAN DEMOCRACY, 

THIS WORK IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED, BY 

THE AUTHOR. 



INTRODUCTION. 



In presenting this work to the pnhlic, it is our aim to give 
a full account of the operations of the secret political society known 
as the Know-Nothing Party, in Virginia, in 1855. In doing this, 
we hope to present something useful to the living, and which may 
guard the unthinking in after generations against the machinations 
of any secret sect, clique or party, that may have for its ohject a 
usurpation of the government and its spoils, by other tenure than 
the popular voice. If we succeed in this we shall have accomplished 
our chief aim. AVo shall present the arguments of the ablest men 
in the land, both as speakers and as writers, against Know-Nothing- 
ism, coupled with their defence of the time honored principles of 
the Democratic party. This work will l)e compiled principally of 
such newspaper articles and speeches as were elicited in the Avar 
against Know-Nothingism during the gubernatorial canvass of 1855. 
The newspapers from which we have drawn most copiously, are the 
Richmond Enquirer, Examiner and Whig. In prefacing these 
compiled extracts, Ave have giA^en our opinions succinctly, conscien- 
tiously, fearlessly, and unreservedly. 

James Pinkney Hambleton, M. D. 

Pittsylvania C. H. Va. } 
December^ 1855. ) 



CAMPAIGN OF 1855. 



DEMOCRATIC MEETING IN NORFOLK COUNTY IN THE 
FALL OF 1854.— HON. HENRY A. WISE'S LETTER UPON 
KNOW-NOTHINOISM. 

[During the latter part of the summer of 1854, the newspapers of Virginia 
began to direct their attention to the gubernatorial canvass that was to come 
off in our state in the next year^ Various prominent individuals were 
spoken of by their respective friends, when, in the early part of September 
1854, the citizens of Norfolk county determined to hold a meeting and cor- 
respond with these distinguished gentlemen in order to obtain from them 
an expression of opinion in regard to the new party then said to be organ- 
izing in the state, under the cognomen of Know-Nothings. The committee 
of correspondence appointed by this meeting wrote to the following gentle- 
men, viz: Ex-Governor William Smith, Lieut. Governor S. F. Leake, Hon. 
John Letcher, Hon. James A. Seddon, and Hon. Henry A. Wise. All of 
these gentlemen very promptly answered, and all satisfactorily, with the 
exception of Ex-Gov. Smith. He answered after a long time, but evasively. 
Mr. Wise's ansvrer was prompt, plain, satisfactory and elaborate. In his 
letter to this committee was recognized the true spirit of a southern republi- 
can and statesman. There was no document that appeared on the subject 
which bespoke so truly the sentiments of the Democratic party of Virginia in 
their utter detestation of secret political societies and religious intolerance. 
We give this masterly production an appropriate insertion in the beginning 
of this compilation: 

Only, near Onancock, Virginia, > 
September 18th, 1854. ] 

To : 

Dear Sir: — I now proceed to give you the reasons for the opinions I 
expressed in my letter of the 2nd instant, as fully as my leisure will permit: 

I said that I did not "think that the present state of affairs in this country 
is such as to justifij the formation, by the people, of ajiy Secret Political 
Society." 

The laws of the United States — federal and state laws — declare and 
defend. the liberties of our people. They are free in every sense — free in 
the sense of Magna Charta and beyond Magna Charta ; free by the surpass- 



8 

ing franchise of Americnn Charters, which makes ihem Sovereign and their 
wills the sources of constituiiojis und laws. 
If the archbishop might say to King John, 

" Let every Briton, as his mind, be free ; 
His person safe ; iiis property secure ; 
His house as sacred as the fane of Heaven ; 
W atching, unseen, iiis ever open door. 
Watching the real;n, the spirit of the laws ; 
His fate deternlined by the rules of right. 
His voice enacted in the common voice 
And general suffrage of the assembled realm. 
No hand invisible to write his doom ; 
No demon starting at the midnight hour, 
To draw his curtain, or to drag liim down 
To mansions of despair. Wide to the world 
Disclose the secrets of the prison walls, 
And bid the groanings of the dunge; n strike 
The public ear — Iiniolable preserve 
The sacred shield that covers all the land. 
The Heaven-conferr'd palladium of the isle, 
To Briton's sons, the judgment of their peers. 
On these great pillars : freedom of the mind. 
Freedom of speecii, and freedom of the pen. 
Forever changing, yet forever sure, 
The base of Briton rests." 

— we may say that our American Charters have more than confirmed these 
laws of the Confessor, and our people have given to them "as free, as full, 
and as sovereign a consent" as was ever given by John to the bishops and 
the barons, " at Runnimede, the field of freedom," to which it was said — 

" Britain's sons shall come. 
Shall tread where heroes and where patriots trod, 
To worship as they walk !" 

In this country, at this time, does any man think anything? Would he 
think aloud .'' Would he speak anything.? Would he write anything.? His 
mind is free, his person is safe, his property is secure, his house is his castle, 
the spirit of the laws is his body-guard and his house-guard ; the fate of one 
is the fate of all measured by the same common rule of right; his voice is 
heard and felt in the general suffrage of freemen ; his trial is in open court, 
confronted by witnesses and accusers ; his prison house has no secrets, and 
he has the judgment of his peers; and there is nought \o make him afraid, 
so long as he respects the rights of his equals in the eye of the la\V. Would 
he propagate Truth.? — Truth is free to combat Error. Would he propagate 
Error.^ — Error itself may stalk abroad and do her mischief and make night 
itself grow darker, provided Truth is left free to follow, however slowly, Avith 
her torches to light up the wreck ! Why, then, should any portion of the 
people desire to retire in secret, and by secret means to propagate a political 
thought, or word, or deed, by stealth .? Why band together, exclusive of 
others, to do something which all may not know of, towards some political 
end .? If it be good, why not make the good known ? Why not think it, speak 
it, write it, act it out openly and aloud .? Or, is it evil, which loveth darkness 
rather than light? When there is no necessity to justify a secret association 
iov political ends, what else can justify it? A caucus may sit in secret to 
consult on the general policy of a great public party. That may be neces- 
sary or convenient; but that even is reprehensible, if carried too far. But 
here is proposed a great primary, national organization, in its inception — 
What ? JYobody knows. To do what ? .J\''ohody knoivs. How'organized ? 
JVobody knows. Governed by whom? JVobody Imoivs. How bound? By 



what rites? By wliat test oaths? With what limitations and restraints? 
Noboc]}^ nobody knows!!! All we know is, that pcvsons of foreign birth 
and of Caiholic faith are proscribed, and so are all others who don't pro- 
scribe them at the polls. This is certainly against the spirit of Magna 
Charta. 

Such is our condition of freedom at home, showing no necessity for such 
a secret organization and its antagonism to the very basis of American rights. 
And our comparative native and Protestant strength at home repels the plea 
of such necessity still more. The statistics of immigration show that from 
1820 to 1st January, 1853, inclusive, for 32 years and more, 3,204,848 for- 
eigners arrived in the United Slates, at the average rate of 100,151 per 
annum ; that the number of persons of foreign birth now in the United States 
is 2,210,839; that the number of natives, whites, is 17,737,578, and of per- 
sons whose nativity is ''unknown," is 39,154. (Quere, by the by: — What 
will " Knoiv-J\'othtngs" do with the " unknoum ?") The number of natives to 
persons of foreign birth in the United States, is as 8 to 1, and the most of 
the latter, of course, are naturalized. Ta Virginia the whole number of 
white natives is 813,891, of persons born out of the State and in the United 
States, 57,502, making a total of natives of 871,393; and the number of 
persons born in foreign countries, is 22,953. So that in Virginia the num- 
ber of natives is to the number of persons born in foreign countries, nearly 
as 38 to 1. 

Again : — the churches of the United States provide accommodations for 
14,234,825 votaries ; the Roman Catholics for but 667,823; the number of 
votaries in the Protestant to the number in the Roman Catholic in the United 
States, as 21 to 1. In Virginia the whole number is 856,436, the Roman 
Catholics 7,930, or 108 to 1. ^ 

The number of churches in the United States is 38,061, of Catholic 
.churches 1,221; more tnan 31 to 1 are Protestant. In Virginia the number 
of churches is 2,383, of Catholic churches is 17; more than 140 to 1. 

The whole value of church property in the United States is $87,328,801, 
of Catholic church property is $9,256,758, or 9 to 1. In Virginia the whole 
value of church property is $2,856,076; of Catholic church property, 
$126,100, or 22 to 1. 

In the United States there are four Protestant sects, either of which is 
larger than the Catholics: 

The Baptists provide accomniotlations for 3,247,029 

The Methodists for 4,34:?,:579 

The Presbvterians for 2,()7<),690 

The Conirfejralionalists for 801,835 



Afifgregate of four Protestant sects, 10,472.073 

The Catholics for 667,823 



Majority of only four Protestant sects, 9,804,250 

Add the EpisLopaliaiis for * 643,598 



Majority of only five Protestant sects, 10,447,843 

In Virginia there are five Protestant sects, either of which is larger than the number of 
Catholics in the State. 

Baptists, 247,589 

Episcopal, 79,684 

Lutheran, 18,750 

Methodists, 323,708 

Presbyterian, 103,625 



773.356 
Catholics, 7,930 

Majority of free Protestant sects in Virginia, 765,426 



10 

Ornearly 98 to 1. 

Thus natives are to persons of foreign birth 

In the United States, as 8 to 1 

In Virginia, as 38 to 1 

The Protestant church accommodations are to the Catholic 

In the United States, as 21 to 1 

In Virginia, as 108 to 1 

The number of Protestant churches is to the number of Catholic 

In the United States, as 31 to 1 

In Virginia, as 140 to 1 

The value oi Protestant church property in the United States, is to the value of Cath 

olic church property as 9 to 1 

In Virginia, as 22 to 1 

There are four Protestant sects, each of which is larger than the Catholic, 
in the United States, and the aggregate of which exceeds the Catholic by a 
majority of 9,804,250 votaries, and, adding one sect smaller, by a majority of 
10,447,848. 

In Virginia there are five Protestant sects, each larger than the number of 
Catholics in the state, and the aggregate of which exceeds the Catholics by 
a majority of 765,426 votaries. 

Now, what has such a majority of numbers, and of wealth of natives and 
of Protestants, to fear from such m?iorilies of Catholics and naturalized citi- 
zens ? What is the necessity for this master mr.jority to resort to secret 
organization against such a minority ?/l put it fairly : Would they organize 
at all against the Catholics and naturalized citizens, if the Catholics and 
naturalized citizens were in the like majority of numbers and of wealth, or 
if majorities and minorities were reversed? To retire in secret with such a 
majority, does it not confess to samet/iing which dares not subject itself to 
the scrutiny of knowledge, and would have discussion Know-Nothing of its 
designs and operations and ends? Cannot the Know-Nothings trust to the 
leading Protestant churches to defend themselves and the souls of all the 
saints, and sinners too, against the influence of Catholics ? Can't they trust 
to the patriotism and fraternity of natives to guard the land against immi- 
grants ? In defence of the reat American Protestant churches, I venture 
to say in their behalf, that the Pope, and all his priests combined, are not 
more zealous and watchful in their master's work, or i?i the ivork for ike mas- 
tery, than are our Episcopal, Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, and 
Congregational clergy. They are, as a whole church militant, with their 
armor bright; they are zealous, they are jealous, they are watchful, they are 
organized, embodied, however divided by sectarianism, yet banded together 
against Papacy, and learned and active, and politic too as any brotherhood of 
monks. They need no such political organization to defend the faith. Are 
ihey united in it? Do they favor or countenance it among their flocks? To 
what end? In the name of their religion, I ask them — Why not rely on 
.Godi And do the Know-Nothings imagine that the pride and love of coun- 
try are so dead in native hearts, that secret organizations are necessary to 
beget a new-born patriotism to protect us from foreign influence ? Now, in 
defence of our people, I say for them that no people upon earth are more 
possessed ^\W\ nationality ■d.'s, a strong passion than the freemen of the United 
States of North America. Nowhere is the filial and domestic tie stronger, 
nowhere is the tie of kinship more binding, nowhere is there more amor loci 
— the love of home, which is the surest foundation of the love of country — 
nowhere is any country's romance of history more felt, nowhere are the 
social relations on a better moral foundation, nowhere is there as clear iden- 
tity of parentage and offspring, nowhere are sons and daughters so "educated 
to liberty," nowhere have any people such certainty of the knowledge of the 
reward of vigilance, nowhere have they such freedom of self-government, 
nowhere is there such trained hatred of kings, lords and aristocracies, 



11 

nowhere is there more self-independence, or more independence of the Old 
World or its traditions — in a word, nowhere is there a country whose people 
have, by birthri,2:ht, a tithe of what our people have to make' them love that 
land which is their countri/, and that spot which is their home! I am an 
American, a Virfjinian ! Prouder than ever to have said, "I am a Roman 
citizen!" So far from Brother Jonathan wanting a national feeling, he is 
justly suspected abroad of a little too much pride and bigotry of country. 
The revolution and the last war with Great Britatn, tried us, and the late 
conquest of Mexico found us not wanting in the sentimentality of nation- 
alism. Though so young, we have already a dialect and a mannerism, and 
our customs and our costume. A city dand}'- may have his coat cut in Paris, 
but he would fight a Frenchman in the cloth of his country as quick to-day 
as a INIarion man ever pulled the trigger of a Tower musket against a red- 
coat Englishman in '76. And peace has tried our patriotism moi-e than war. 
What people have more reason to love a country from the labor they have 
bestowed upon its development by the arts of industry ? No: as long as the 
memory of George Washington lives, as long as there shall be a 22d of Feb- 
ruary and a 4th of July, as long as the everlasting mountains of this conti- 
nent stand, and our Father of Waters flows, there will be fathers to hand 
down the stories which make our hearts to glow, and mothers to sing " Hail 
Columbia" to their babes — and that song is not yet stale. There is no need 
to revive a sinking patriotism in the hearts of our people. And who would 
have them be selfish in their freedom ? Freedom ! Liberty ! selfish and 
exclusive ! Never; for it consumeth not in its use, but is like fire in magni- 
fying, by imparting its sparks and its rays of light and of heat. Is there any 
necessity from abroad for such secret political organizations ? Against 
whom, and against what, is it levelled? Against foreigners by birth. 

AVhen we were as weak as th?-ee 7ninions, we relied largely on foreigners 
by birth to defend us and aid us in securing independence. Now that we 
are tw'enty-two millions strong, how is it we have become so weak in our 
fears as to apprehend we are to be deprived of our liberties by foreigners ? 
Verily, this seemeth as if Know-Nothings were reversing the order of 
things, or that there is another and a different feeling from that of the fear 
arising from a sense of weakness. It comes rather from a proud conscious- 
ness of over-weening strength. They wax strong rather, and would kick, 
like the proud grown fat. It is an exclusive, if not an aristocratic feeling 
in the true sense, which would say to the friends of freedom born abroad : 
" Wq had need of you and were glad of your aid when we were weak, but 
we are now so independent of you that we are not compelled to allow you 
to enjoy our Republican privileges. We desire the exclusive use of hu- 
man rights, though to deprive you of their common enjoyment will not en- 
rich us the more and will make you 'poor indeed !' " But not only is it 
levelled agaiast foreigners by birth, but against the Pope of Rome. 

There was once a time when the very name of Pajm frightened us as the 
children of a nursery. But, now, now ! who can be frightened by the tem- 
poral or ecclesiastical authority of Pius IX ? Has he got back to Rome 
from his late excursion ? Who are his body-guard there ? Have the lips 
of a crowned head kissed his big toe for a century ? Are any so poor as 
to do his Italian crown any reverence? Do not two Catholic powers, 
France and Austria, hold all his dominions in a detestable dependency ? 
What army, what revenue, what diplomacy, what church domination in 
even the Catholic countries of the old or the new world has he ? Why, the 
idea of the Pope's influence at this day is as preposterous as that of a gun- 
powder plot. I would as soon think of dreading the ghost of Guy Fawkes. 

No, there is no necessity, from either oppression or weakness of Protes- 
tants or natives. They are both free and strong; and do they now, because 



12 

thev are rich in civil and religious freedom, wish, in turn, to persecute, and 
exclude tlie fallen and the down-trodden of the earth ? — God forbid ! 

2d. But there is not only no necessity for this secret political organiza- 
tion, but it is against the spirit of our laws and the facts of our history. 
^om^ families \n this. Republic render themselves ridiculous, and offensive, 
too, by the vain pretensions to the exalting accidents of birth. We, in Vir- 
ginia, are not seldom pointed at for our F. F. V.'s of ancestral arrogance. 
But, who ever thought that pretension of this sort was so soon to be set up 
by exclusives for the Republic itself ? Some of the ancient European people 
may boast of their "protoplasts," and of their being themselves " autoch- 
t/iones" — that they had fathers and mothers from near Adam, whom they 
can name as their first formers, and that they are of the same unmixed 
blood, original inhabitants of their country. But who were our jjrotoplasts? 
English, Irish, Scotch, German, Dutch, Swedes, French, Swiss, Spanish, 
ItalTan, Ethiopian — all people of all nations, tribes, complexions, languages 
and religions ! And who alone are " autochthones" here in North Amer- 
ica ? — Why, the Indians! They are the only true natives. One thing we 
have, and that more distinctly than any other nation: we have our " epony- 
mas." We can name the very hour of our birth as a people. We need re- 
cur to no fable of a wolf to whelp us into existence. It may be hard to 
fix Anno Mundi, or the year of Noah's flood, or the building of Rome. 
Rome may have her Julian epocha, the Ethiopian their epocha of the Abys- 
sines, the Arabians theirs of the flight of Mahomet, the Persians theirs of 
the coronation of Jesdegerdis ; but ours dates from the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence among the nations of the earth, the 4th day of July, A. D. 1776. 
As a nation v;e are but 78 years of age. Many a person is now living who 
was alive before this nation was born. And the ancestors of this people, 
about two centuries only ago, were foreigners, every one of them coming 
to the shores of this country, to take it away from the Aborigines, the " autoch- 
thones," and to take possession of it by authority, either directly or deriva- 
tively, of Vapal Power 1 His holiness the Pope was the great grantor of all 
the new countries of North America. This fiction was a fact of the history 
of all our first discoveries and settlements. Foreigners, in the name of the 
Pope and Mother Church, took possession of North America, to have and 
to hold the same to their heirs against the heathen forever! — and now al- 
ready their descendants are for excluding foreigners and the Pope's follow- 
ers from an equal enjoyment of the privileges of this same possession ! So 
strange is human history. Christopher Columbus ! Ferdinand and Isa- 
bella? What would they have thought of this had they foreseen it when 
they touched a continent and called it theirs in the name of the Holy 
Trinity, by authority of the keeper of the keys of heaven, and of the great 
o-rantor of the empire and domain of earth ? What would have become of 
our national titles to north-eastern and north-western boundaries, but for the 
plea of this authority, valid of old among all Christian Powers ? 

Following the discovery and the possession of the country by foreigners, in 
virtue of Catholic majesty, came the settlements of the country by force and 
constraint of religious intolerance and persecution. Puritans, Huguenots, Cav- 
aliers, Catholics, Quakers, all came to Western wilds, each in turn persecuted 
and persecuting for opinion's sake. Oppression of opinion was the most odious 
of the abominations of the Old World's despotism — its only glory and grace 
is that it made thousands of martyrs. It deluged every country and tainted 
the air of every clime, and stained the robes of righteousness of every 
sect ivith blood, with the blood of every human sacrifice, Avhich was honest 
and earnest in its faith, the hypocrites and hinds of profession alone escaping 
the swords or the flames of persecution. The colonies were jblackened by 
the burnings of the stake, and were died red with the blood of intolerance. 



13 

The American revolution made a new era of liberty to dawn — the era of 
the liberty of conscience. If there is any essence in Americanism, the 
very salt wherewith it is savored is the freedom of opinion and the liberty 
of conscience. Is it now proposed that we shall go back to the deeds of 
the dark ages of despotism ? That this broad land, still unoccupied in more 
than half of its virgin soil, shall no longer be an asylum for the oppressed ? 
That here, as elsewhere, and again, as of old, men shall be burthenod by 
their births and chained for their opinions? I trust that a design of that 
intent will remain a secret buried forever. 

I have said this organization was against the spirit of our law^s. Our laws 
sprang from the necessity of the condition of our early settlers. They 
brought with them from England their Penates, the household gods of an 
Anglo-Saxon race, the liberties of Magna Charta, the trial by jury, the judg- 
ment of the peers, and the other muniments of human dignity and human 
rights secured by the first English Charta. These, foreigners brought with 
them from Europe. Here they found the virtues to extend these rights and 
their muniments. The neglect of the mother country left them self-de- 
pendent and self-reliant until they were thoroughly taught the lesson of self- 
government — that they could be their own sovereigns — and the very experi- 
ence of despotism they had once tasted made them hate tyrants, either 
elective or hereditary. Their destitute and exposed condiLion trained them 
to hardy habits and cultivated in them every sterner virtue. They knew 
privation, fatigue, endurance, self-denial, fortitude, and were made men at 
arms — cautious, courageous, generous, just and trusting in God. They had 
to fight Indians, from Philip, on Massachusetts Bay, to Powhatan, on the 
river of Swans. And they had an unexplored continent to subdue, with its 
teeming soil, its majestic forests, its towering mountains, and its unequalled 
rivers. Above all thmgs, they needed population, more fellow-settlers, more 
foreigners to immigrate, and to aid them in the task of founders of empire 
set before them, to open the forests, to level the hills, and to raise up the 
valleys of a giant new country. Well, these foreigners did their task like 
men. Such a work ! w'ho can exaggerate it ? They did it against all odds 
and in spite of European oppression. They grew and thrived, until they 
were rich enough to be taxed. They were told taxation was no tyranny. 
But these foreigners gave the world a new truth of freedom. Taxation with- 
out representation was tyranny. The attempt to impose it upon them, the 
least mite of it, made them resolve, "that they would give millions for 
defence, but not a cent for tribute." That resolve drove them to the neces- 
sity of war, and they, foreigners, Protestants, Catholics and all, took the 
dire alternative, united as a band of brothers, and declared their dependence 
upon God alone. And they entered to the world a complaint of grievances 
— a Declaration of Independence ! This was pretty well to show whether 
foreigners, of any and all religions, just fresh from Europe, could be trusted 
on the side of America and liberty. One of the first of their complaints 
was : 

" He (George III.) has endeavored to prevent the population of these 
states, for that purpose obstructing the laws for naiuralizaiion of foreigners, 
refusing to pass others to encourage their emigration hither, and raising the 
conditions of new appropriations of land." 

There is the proof that they valued the naturalization of foreigners and 
the immigration of foreigners hither, and they desired appropriations, new 
appropriations of land, for immigrants. 

Anotheir complaint was, that they had appealed in vain to " British breth- 
ren." They said : 

" We have appealed to their ?j«/a)e justice and magnanimity; and we 
have conjured them, by the ties of our common kindred, to disavow these 



14 

usurpations, &c. They, too, have been deaf to the voice of justice and con- 
sanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity which denounces 
our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in 
war, in peace friends." 

There is proof, too, that Nativism can't always be relied on to help one's 
own countrymen, and that brethren, and kindred, and consanguinity, will 
fail a whole people in trouble, just as kinship too often fails families and in- 
dividuals in the trials of life. 

" And," lastly, "for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance 
on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other 
our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor." 

There was tolerance, there was firm reliance on the same one God ; there 
was mutuality of pledge, each to the other, at one altar, and there was a 
common stake of sacrifice — "lives, fortunes and honor." And who were 
they? There were Hancock the Puritan, Penn the Quaker, Rutledge the 
Huguenot, Carroll the Catholic, Lee the Cavalier, Jeflerson the Free Thinker. 
These, representatives of all .the signers, and the signers, representatives of 
all the people of all the colonies. 

Oh! my countrymen, did not that "pledge" bind them and bind us, 
their heirs, forever to faith and hope in God and to charity I'or each other — to 
tolerance in religion, and to "mutuality" in political freedom? Down, 
down with any organization, then, which "denounces" a "separation" 
between Protestant Virginia and Catholic Maryland — between the children 
of Catholic Carroll and Protestant George Wythe. Their names stand to- 
gether among "the signatures," and I will redeem their " m.utual " pledges 
with my "life," my "fortune," and my " sacred honor," "so far as in me 
lies — so help me. Almighty God !" 

I think that here is proof enough that "foreigners" and Catholics both 
entered as material elements into our Americanism. But before the 4th day 
of July there were laws passed of the highest authority, to which this secret 
organization is opposed. 

On the 12th of June, '76, the Convention of Virginia passed a "Declara- 
tion of Rights." Its Hth section declares: "that no man, or set of 
men, are entitled to exclusive or separate emoluments or privileges from the 
community, but in consideration of public services ; which not being de- 
scendible, neither ought the olfices of magistrate, legislator or judge to be 
hereditary." 

Now, does the Know-Nothing organization not claim for the "■native 
born" "set of men" to be entitled to exclusive privileges from the commu- 
nity as against naturalized and Catholic citizens ; and thus, by virtue of 
birth, to inherit the right of election to the ofiices of magistrates, legislator 
or judge, which are not descendible? They set up no such claim for the 
individual person native born, but they do set up a quaUtij for nativHii, to 
which, and to which alone, they claim, pertains the privileges of eligibility 
to offices. 

Again: — Does this organization not violate the 7th section of this de- 
claration of rights, which forbids "all power of suspending laws, or the exe- 
cution of laws, by any authority without consent of the representatives of 
the people, as injurious to their rights, and which ought not to be exer- 
cised ?" When the laws say, and the representatives of the people say, that 
Catholics and naturalized citizens shall be tolerated and allowed to enjoy 
the privileges of citizenship, and eligibility to otfice, have they not organized 
a secret power to suspend these laws and to prevent the execution oif them, 
by their sole authority, without consent of the representatives of the people ? 
This declaration denounces it as injurious to the rights of the people and as 
a power which ought not to be exercised. 



15 

Again : — Does not this organization annul that part of the 8th section of 
this declaration, which says: "That no man shall be deprived of his liberty, 
except by the law of the land, or the judgment of his peers?" This don't 
apply alone to personal liberty, the freedom of the body from prison, but no 
man shall be deprived of his franchises of any sort, of his liberty in its 
largest sense, except by the law of the land or the judgment of his peers, 
the trial by jury. Has, then, a private and secret tribunal a right to impose 
qualifications for office, and to enforce their laws by test oaths, so as to de- 
prive any man of his liberty to be elected ? 

Again: — Is this organization not an Imperium in Imperio against the 14th 
section of this declaration, which says: "That the people have a right to 
uniform government, and, therefore, that no government separated from or 
independent of the government of Virginia, ought to be erected or estab- 
lished witkin the limits thereof.'^ It is not z. governmejit, but does it not, will 
it not, politically govern the portion of the people belonging to it, differently 
from what the ])ortion of the people not belonging to it, are governed by the 
laws of Virginia? 

Again: — It does not adhere to the "justice and moderation" inculcated 
in the 1.5th section of the declaration. And lastly, it avowedly opposes the 
16th section, which declares, " that religion, or the duty which we owe to our 
Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason 
and conviction, not by force or violence ; and, therefore, all men are equally 
entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of con- 
.^cie?ice ; and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbear- 
ance, love and charity towards each other." 

But this organization not only contravenes the rules of our Declaration of 
Independence and Rights, but it is in the face of a positive and perpetual 
statute, now made a part of our organic law by the new Constitution — the 
Act of Religious Freedom, passed the 16th of December, 1785. Against 
this law, this Know^-Nothlng order attacks the freedom of the mind, by im- 
posing-" civil incapacitations ;" it "attempts to punish one religion and to 
propagate another by coercion on both "body and mind ;" it " sets up its own 
opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible ;" it makes 
our " civil rights to have a dependence on our religious opinions ;" it "de- 
prives citizens of their natural rights, by proscribing them as unworthy the 
public confidence, by laying upon them an incapacit}^ of being called to 
offices of trust and emolument, unless they profess or renounce this or that 
religious opinion;" "it tends to corrupt the principles of that religion it is 
meant to encourage, by bribing with a monopoly of worldly honors and 
emoluments, those who wall externally profess and conform to it ;" it lacks 
confidence in Truth, which " is great and will prevail," if left to herself ; 
that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to Error, and has nothing to 
fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural 
weapons, free argument and debate ; it withdraws errors from free argument 
and debate, and hides them in secret, where they become dangerous, because 
it is not permitted freely to contradict them. 

Let it not be said that this is a restraining statute upon government, and 
is a prohibition to "legislators and rulers, civil as w^ell as ecclesiastical." If 
they even are restrained by this law% a fortiori, every private organization, 
or order, or individual, is restrained. The Know-Nothings will hardly pre- 
tend to do what the government itself, and legislators, and rulers, civil as 
well as ecclesiastical, dare not do. If such be their pretensions they claim 
to be above the law, or to set up a higher law — then, sic volo, to compel a 
man to frequent or support any religious worship, and to enforce, restrain, 
molest, or burthen him, or "to make him suffer" on account of his religious 
opinions or belief; or to deprive men of their freedom to profess, and by 



16 

argument to maintain their opinions in matters of religion, and to make the 
same diminish, enlarge or affect their civil capacities. No, when our Con- 
stitutions ibrbid the legislators to exercise a power, they intend that no such 
power shall be exercised by any one. 

Not only is the law of Virginia thus liberal as to religion, but also as to 
naturalization. 

So far as " Know-Nothingism " opposes our naturalization laws, it is not 
only against our statute policy, but against Americanism itself. In this it is 
especially anti-American. One of the best fruits of the American Revolu- 
tion was to establish, for the first time in the world, the human risht of ex- 
patriation. Prior to our separate existence as a nation of the earth, the des- 
potisms of the old world had made a law unto themselves, whereby they 
could hold forever in chains those of mankind who were so unfortunate as 
to be born their subjects. In respect to birthright and the right of expatria- 
tion, and the duty of allegiance and protection, and the law of treason, 
crowned heads held to the ancient dogma: " Once a citizen always a citi- 
zen." If a man was so miserable as to be born the slave of a tyrant, he 
must remain his slave forever. He could never renounce his ill-fated birth- 
right — could never expatriate himself to seek for a better country — and 
could never forswear the allegiance which bound him to his chains. He 
might emigrate, might take the w'ings of the morning and fly to the utter- 
most parts of the earth, might cross seas and continents, and put oceans, and 
rivers, and lakes, and mountains between him and the throne in the shadow 
of which he was born, and he would still "but drag a lengthening chain." 
Still the despotism might pursue him, find and bind him as a subject slave. 
If America beckoned to him to fly to her for freedom, and to give her the 
cunning and the strength of hife right arm to help ameliorate her huge pro- 
portions and to work out her grand destiny, the tyrant had to be asked for 
passports and permission to expatriate. But they came — lo ! they came ! 
Our laws encouraged them to come. Before '76, Virginia and all the colo- 
nies encouraged immigration. It was a necessity as well as a policy of the 
whole country. Early in the revolution, the king's forces hung some of the 
best blood of the colonies under the maxim, " Once a citizen, always a citi- 
zen." They were traitors if found fighting for us, because they were once 
subjects. AVashington was obliged to hold hostages, to prevent the applica- 
tion of this barbarous doctrine of tyranny. At last our struggle ended, and 
our independence was recognized. George HI. Avas compelled to renounce 
our allegiance to him, though we wei-e born his subjects. But still, when we 
came to our separate existence, we were called on to recognize the same 
odious maxim, still adhered to b}' the despots of Europe: "Once a citizen, 
always a citizen." Subjects w^ere still told that they should not expatriate 
themselves, and America was warned that she should not naturalize them 
without the consent of their monarch masters. Spurning this dogma, and 
the tyrants who boasted the power to enforce it, the 4th power which the 
Convention of 1787, that formed our blessed Constitution, enumerated, is : 
"The Congress shall have power 'to estabhsh an uniform rule of naturaliza- 
tion.' " 

The meaning of this was, to say by public law to all Europe and her com- 
bined courts, " Your dogma, 'once a citizen always a citizen,' shall cease 
forever as to the United States of North America. W^e need population to 
smooth our rough places, and to make our crooked places straight; but, 
above and beyond that policy, we are, with the help of God, resolved that 
this new and giant land shall be one vast asylum for the oppressed of every 
other land, now and forever! " That is my reading of our law of liberty. 
Those born in bondage might raise their eyes up in hope of a better country ! 
They might, and should if they would, expatriate themselves, fly from 



17 

slavery and chains, and come! — Ho, every one of them, come to our country 
and be free \\\i\\ us! They might forswear their allegiance to despots, and 
should be allowed here to take an oath to liberty and her flag, and her free- 
dom, and they should not be j)ursued and punished as traitors. When they 
came and swore that our country should be their country, we would swear to 
protect them as if in the country born, as if natives — i. e., as naturalized 
citizens, and they should be our citizens and be entitled to our protectio7i. 
And this was in conformity to the only true idea of " Naturalization," which, 
according to its legal as Avell as its etymological sense, means, " when one 
who is an alien is made a natural subject by act of law and consent of the 
sovereign power of the state." The consent of our sovereign power is 
written in the Constitution of the United States, and Congress, at an early 
day after its adoption, passed the acts of naturalization. The leading statute 
is that of April 14th, 1802. It provided that any alien, being a free ivhite 
person, may be admitted to become a citizen of the United States, or any of 
them, on the following conditions, and not otherwise : 

1st. That he shall have declared on oath or affirmation before the supreme, 
superior, district or circuit court of some one of the states, or of the territo- 
rial districts of the United States, or a circuit or district court of the United 
States, three years {two years by act of May 26th, 1824,) at least before his 
admission, that it was his bona fide intention to become a citizen of the 
United States, and to renounce forever all allegiance and fidelity to any 
foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereignty, whereof such alien may at 
the time be a citizen or subject. 

2d. That he shall, at the time of his application to be admitted, declare on 
oath or affirmation before some one of the courts aforesaid, that he will sup- 
port the Constitution of the United States, and that he doth absolutely and 
entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to every foreign 
prince, potentate, state or sovereignty whatever, and particularly, by name, 
the prince, potentate, state or sovereignty whereof he was before a citizen 
or subject; which proceedings shall be recorded by the clerk of the court. 

3rd. That the court admitting such alien shall be satisfied that he has 
resided within the United States five years at least, and within the state or 
territory where such court is at the time held, one year, at least ; and it 
shall further appear to their satisfaction, that during that time he has behaved 
as a man of good moral character, attached to the principles of the Con- 
stitution of the United States, and well disposed to the good order and 
happiness of the same ; Provided, That the oath of the applicant shall in no 
case be allowed to prove his residence. 

4Lh. That in case the alien applying to be admitted to citizenship shall have 
borne any hereditary title or been of any of the orders of nobility in the 
kingdom or state from which he came, he shall, in addition to the above 
requisites, make an express renunciation of his title or order of nobility in 
the court to which his application shall be made, which renunciation shall 
be recorded in the said court: Provided, That no alien who shall be a native, 
citizen, denizen, or subject, of any country, state, or sovereign, with whom 
the United States shall be at war at the time of his application, shall then 
be admitted to be a citizen of the United States. 

The act has other provisions, and has since been modified from time to 
time. This statute had not operated a legal life time before Great Britain 
again asserted the dogma: " Once a citizen, always a citizen !" The base 
and cowardly attack of the Leopard on the Chesapeake, at the mouth of 
this very bay, in sight of the Virginia shore, was made upon the claim of 
right to seize British born subjects from on board our man-of-war. The 
star-spangled banner was struck that day for the last time to the detestable 
maxim of tyranny : — " Once a citizen, always a citizen." It must not be 
2 



18 

forgotten that it was upon this doctrine of despots that the Right of Search 
was founded. They arrogated to themselves the prerogative to search our 
decks on the high seas, and to seize those of our crews who were born in 
British dominions. In 1812, we declared the last war. For what? For 
" Free Trade, and Sailors' Rights" That is, for the right of our naturalized- 
citizen-sailors to sail on the high seas, and to trade abroad free from search 
and seizure. They had been required to "renounce and abjure," all "al- 
legiance and fidelity" to any other country, state, or sovereignty, and 
particularly to the country, state, or sovereignty under which they have 
been natives or citizens, and we had reciprocally undertaken to p7-otecf them 
in consideration of their oaths of allegiance and fidelity to the United States. 
How protect them ? By enabling them to fulfil their obligations to us of al- 
legiance and fidelity, by making them free to fight for our flag, and free in 
every sense, just as if the}'^ had been born in our country. Fight for us 
they did ; naturalized, and those not naturalized, were of our crews. They 
fought in every sea for the flag which threw protection over them, from 
the first gun of the Constitution frigate to the last gun of the boats on 
Lake Pontchartrain, in every battle where 

" Cannon's mouths were each other greeting, 
And yard arm was with yard arm meeting." 

That war sealed in the blood of dead and living heroes the eternal, Amer- 
ican principle: — "The right of cxpatiiation, the right and duty of naturali- 
zation — the right to fly from t3^ranny to the flag of freedom, and the recip- 
rocal duties of allegiance and protection." And does a party — an order or 
what not, calling itself an American party, now oppose and call upon me 
to oppose these great American truths, and to put America in the wrong 
for declaring and fighting the last war of independence against Great 
Britain ? Never ! I would as soon go back to wallowing in the mire of 
European serfdom. I won't do it. I can't do it. No; I will lie down and 
rise up a Native American, for and not against these imperishable Amer- 
ican truths. Nor will any true American, who underetands what Amer- 
icanism is do otherwise. I put a case : 

A Prussian born subject came to this country. He complied with our 
naturalization laws in all respects of notice of intention, residence, oath of alle- 
giance, and proof of good moral character. He remained continuousl}^ in the 
United States the full period of five years. When he had fully filled the meas- 
ure of his probation and was consummately a naturalized citizen of the United 
States, he then, and not until then, returned to Prussia to visit an aged father. 
He was immediately, on his return, seized and forced into the Landwehr, or 
militia system of Prussia, under the maxim : " Once a citizen, always a 
citizen!" There he is forced to do service to the king of Prussia at this 
very hour. He applies for protection to the United States. Would the 
Know-Nothings interpose in his behalf or not } Look at the principles in- 
volved. We, by our laws, encouraged him to come to our country, and 
here he was allowed to become naturalized, and to that end required to re- 
nounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to the king of Prussia, and to 
swear allegiance and fidelity to the United States. The king of Prussia 
now claims no legal forfeiture from him — he punishes him for no crime — he 
claims of him no legal debt — he claims alone that very allegiance and fidelity 
which we required the man to abjure and rei^ounce. Not only so, but he 
hinders the man from reiurning to the United States, and from discharging 
the allegiance and fidelity we required him to swear to the United States. 
The king of Prussia says he should do him service for seven years, for this 
■\yas what he was born to perform ; his obligations were due to him first, and 



19 

his laws were first binding him. The United States say — true, he was born 
under your laws, but he had a right to expatriate himself ; he owed allegi- 
ance first to you, but he had a right to forswear it and to swear allegiance to 
us ; your laws first applied, but this is a case of •political obligation, not of 
/eg-ff/ obligation ; it is not for any crime or debt you claim to bind him, but 
it is for allegiance ; and the claim you set up to his services on the ground of 
his political obligation, his allegiance to you, which we allow him to abjure 
and renounce, is inconsistent with his political obligation, his allegiance, 
which we required him to swear to the United States ; he has sworn fidelity 
to us, and we have, by our laws, pledged j)rotection to him. 

Such is the issue. Now, with which will the Know-Nothings take sides? 
With the king of Prussia against our naturalized citizen and against Amer- 
ica, or with America and our naturalized citizen ? Mark, now, Know-Noth- 
ingism is opposed to all foreign influence — against American institutions. 
The king of Prussia is a pretty potent foreign influence — he was one of the 
holy alliance of crowned heads. Will they take part .with him, and not 
protect the citizen? Then they will aid a foreign influence against our 
laws! Will they take sides with our naturalized citizen? If so, then 
upon what grounds ? Now, they must have a good cause of interposi- 
tion to justify us against all the received dogmas of European despotism. 

Don't they see, can't they perceive, that they have no other grounds than 
those I have urged ? He is our citizen, nationalized, owing us allegiance 
and we owing him protection. And if we owe him protection abroad, be- 
cause of his sworn allegiance to us as a naturalized citizen, what then can 
deprive him of his privileges nt home among us when he returns ? If he be 
a citizen at all, he must be allowed the privileges of citizenship, or he will 
not be the egual of his fellow-citizens. And must not Know-Nothingism 
strike at the very equality of citizenship, or allow him to enjoy all its lawful 
privileges? If Catholics and naturalized citizens are to be citizens and 3'et 
to be proscribed from otfice, they must be rated as an inferior class — an ex- 
cluded class of citizens. Will it be said that the law will not make this dis- 
tinction ? Then are we to understand that Know-Nothings would not make 
them equal by law ? If not by law, how can they pretend to make them 
unequal, by their secret order, without law and against law? For them, 
by secret combination, to make them unequal, to impose a burthen or 
restriction upon their privileges which the law does not, is to set them- 
selves up above the law, and to supercede by private and secret author- 
ity, intangible and irresponsible, the rule of public, political right. In- 
deed, is this not the very essence of the " Higher Law" doctrine? It 
cannot be said to be legitimate public sentiment and the action of its 
authority. Public sentiment, proper, is a concurrence of the common 
mind in some conclusion, conviction, opinion, taste or action in respect to 
persons or things subject to its public notice. It will, and it must control the 
minds and actions of men, by public and conventional opinion. Count Mole 
said that in France it was stronger than statutes. It is so here. That it is 
which should decide at the polls of a Republic. But, here is a secret senti- 
ment, which may be so organized as to contradict the public sentiment. 
Candidate A. may be a native and a Protestant, and may concur with the 
community, if it be a Know-Nothing community, on every other subject ex- 
cept that of proscribing Catholics and naturalized citizens ; and candidate 
B. may concur with the community on the subject of this proscription alone, 
and upon no other subject ; and yet the Know-Nothings might elect B. by 
their secret sentiment against the public sentiment. Thus it attacks not 
only American doctrines of expatriation, allegiance and protection, but the 
equality 'of citizenship, and the authority of public sentiment. In the affair 
of Koszta, how did our blood rush to his rescue ? Did the Know-Nothing 



20 

side with him and Mr. Marcy, or with Hulseman and Austria ? If with 
Koszta, why ? Let them a^k themselves for the rationale, and see if it can 
in reason abide with their orders. There is no middle ground in respect to 
naturalization. We must either have naturalization laws and let foreigners 
become citizens, on equal terms of capacities and privileges, or we must ex- 
clude them altogether. If we abolish naturalization laws, we return to the 
European dogma: " Once a citizen, always a citizen." If we let foreigners 
be naturalized and don't extend to them equality of privileges, we set up 
classes and distinctions of persons wholly opposed to Republicanism. -We 
will, as Rome did, have citizens who may be scourged. The three alterna- 
tives are presented — Our present policy, liberal, and just, and tolerant, and 
equal; or the European policy of holding the noses of native born slaves to 
the grind-stone of tyranny all their lives ; or, odious distinctions of citizen- 
ship tending to social and political aristocracy. I am for the present laws of 
naturalization. 

As to religion, the Constitution of the United States, art. 6th, sec. 3, espe- 
cially provides that no ?-eligious test shall ever be required as a qualification 
to any office or public trust under the United States. The state of Virginia 
has, from her earliest history, passed the most liberal laws, not only towards 
naturalization, but towards foreigners. But I have said enough to show the 
spirit of American laws and the true sense of American maxims. 
,-''^rd. Know-Nothingism is against the spirit of the Reformation and of Pro- 
testantism ? 

What was there to Reform ? 

Let the most bigoted Protestant enumerate Avhat he defines to have been 
the abominations of the church of Rome. What would he say were the 
worst? The secrets of Jesuitism, of the ./lufo dafe, of the Monasteries and 
of the Nunneries. The private penalties of the Inquisition's Scavenger's 
daughter. Proscription, Persecution, Bigotry, Intolerance, Shutting up of 
the Book of the Word. And do Protestants now mean to out-Jesuit the 
Jesuits ? Do they mean to strike and not be seen? To be felt and not to be 
heard? To put a shudder upon humanity by the Masks of Mutes? Will 
they wear the Monkish cowls? Will they inflict penalties at the polls 
without reasoning together with their fellows at the hustings ? Will 
they proscribe? Persecute? Will they bloat up themselves into that 
bigotry which would burn non-conformists? Will they not tolerate free- 
dom of conscience, but doom dissenters, in secret conclave, to a forfeiture 
of civil privileges for a religious difference? Will they not translate the 
scripture of their faith ? Will they visit us with dark lanterns and execute 
us by signs, and test oaths, and in secresy ? 
""" Protestantism ! forbid it ! 

If anything was ever open, fair and free — if anything was ever blatant 
even — it was the Reformation. To quote from a mighty British pen: "It 
gave a mighty impulse and increased activity to thought and enquiry, agitated 
the inert mass of accumulated prejudices throughout Europe. The effect of 
the concussion was general, but the shock was greatest in this country" 
(England.) It toppled down the full grown intolerable abuses of centuries 
at a blow ; heaved the ground from under the feet of bigoted faith and slavish 
obedience; and the roar and dashing of opinions, loosened from their accus- 
tomed hold, might be heard like the noise of an angry sea, and has never yet 
subsided. Germany first broke the spell of misbegotten fear, and gave the 
watchword ; but England joined the shout, and echoed it back, with her 
island voice, from her thousand cliffs and craggy shores, in a longer and 
a louder strain. With that cry the genius of Great Britain rose, and threw 
down the gauntlet to the nations. There was a mighty fermentation ; the 
waters were out; public opinion was in a state of projection; Liberty was 



21 

held out to all to think and speak the truth ; men's hrains wevo. husy ; their 
spirits stirring; their hearts full; and their hands not idle. Their eyes were 
opened to expect the greatest things, and their ears burned with curiosity 
and zeal to know the truth, that the truth might make them free. The death 
blow which had been struck at scarlet vice and bloated hypocrisy, loosened 
tongues, and made the talismans and love tokens of Popish superstitions 
Avith which she had beguiled her followers and committed abominations with 
the people, fall harmless from their necks." 

The translation of the IJible was the chief engine in the great work. It 
threw open, by a secret spring, the rich treasures of religion and morality, 
which had then been locked up as in a shrine. It revealed the visions of 
the Prophets, and conveyed the lessons of inspired teachers to the meanest 
of the people. It gave them a common interest in a common cause. Their 
hearts burnt within them as they read. It gave a mind to the people, by 
giving them common subjects of thought and feeling. It cemented their 
Union of character and sentiment ; it created endless diversity and collision 
of opinion. They found objects to employ their faculties, and a motive in 
the magnitude of the consequences attached to them, to exert the utmost 
eagerness in the pursuit of truth, and the most daring intrepidity in main- 
taining it. Religious controversy sharpens the understanding by the subtlety 
and remoteness of the topics it discusses, and braces the will by their infi- 
nite importance. We perceive in the history of this period a nervous, mas- 
culine intellect. No levity, no feebleness, no indifference; or, if there were, 
it is a relaxation from the intense activity which gives a tone to its general 
character. But there is a gravity approaching to piety, a seriousness of im- 
pression, a conscientious severity of argument, an habitual fervor of enthu- 
siasm in their method of handling almost every subject. The debates of the 
schoolmen were sharp and subtle enough; but they wanted interest and 
o-randeur, and were besides confined to a few. They did not affect the gen- 
eral mass of the community. But the Bible was thrown open to all ranks 
and conditions "to own and read," with its wonderful table of contents, 
from Genesis to the Revelations. Every village in England would present 
the scene so well described in Burns' " Cotter's Saturday Night." How 
unlike this agitation, this shock, this angry sea, this fermentation, this shout 
and its echoes, this impulse and activity, this concussion, this general effect, 
this blow, this earthquake, this roar and dashing, this longer and Icuder 
strain, this public opinion, this liberty to all to think and speak the truth, 
this stirring of spirits, this opening of eyes, this zeal to know — not nothing 
— but the iruth, that the truth might make them free. How unlike to this is 
Know-Nothingism, sitting and brooding in secret to proscribe Catholics and 
naturalized citizens ! Protestantism protested against secresy, it protested 
against shutting out the light of truth, it protested against proscription, bigotry 
and intolerance. It loosened all tongues and fought the owls and bats of 
night with the light of meridian day. The argument of Know-Nothings is 
the argument of silence. The order ignores all knowledge. And its pro- 
scription can't arrest itself within the limit of excluding Catholics and natu- j 
ralized citizens. It must proscribe natives and Protestants both, who will/ 
not consent to unite in proscribing Catholics and naturalized citizens. Nor , 
is that all; it must not only apply to birth and religion, it must necessarily 
extend itself to the business of life as well as to political preferments. The 
instances have already occurred. Schoolmistresses have been dismissed 
from schools in Philadelphia, and carpenters from a building in Cincinnati.^ 

4th. It is not only opposed to the Reformation and Protestantism, but it is 
opposed to the faith, hope and charity of the gospel. Never was any triumph 
more complete than that of the open conflict of Protestants against the 
Pope and priestcraft. They did not oppose proscription because it was a policy 



22 

• 

of Catholics ; but they opposed Catholics because they employed proscription. 
Proscription, not Catholics, was the odium to them. Here, now, is Know- 
Nothingism combatting proscription and exclusiveness with proscription and 
exclusiveness, secrecy with secrecy, Jesuitism with Jesuitism. Toleration, 
by American example, had begun its march throughout the earth. It trusted 
in the power of truth, had faith in Christian love and charity, and in the 
certainty that God would decide the contest. Here, now, is an order 
proposing to destroy the effect of our moral example. The Pope himself 
would soon be obliged, by our moral suasion, to yield to Protestants in Cath- 
olic countries their privileges of worship and rites of burial. But, no", the 
proposition now is, " to fight the devil with fire," and to proscribe and exclude 
because they proscribe and exclude. And they take up the weapons of 
Popery without knowing how to wield them half so cunningly as the Catho- 
lics do. The Popish priests are rejoiced to see them giving countenance to 
their example, and expect to make capital and will make capital out of this 
step backwards from the progress of the reformation. Protestantism has lost 
nothing by toleration, but may lose much by proscription. 

5th. It is against the peace and purity of the Protestant churches and in 
aid of priestcraft within their folds, to secretly organize orders for religious 
combined with political ends. The world — I mean the sinner's world — will 
be set at war with the sects who unite in this crusade against tolerance and 
freedom of conscience and of speech. Christ's kingdom is not of this 
world, and freemen will not submit to have the Protestant any more than 
the Catholic churches attempt to influence political elections, without a strug- 
gle from without. And the churches from within must reach a point when 
they must struggle among themselves and with each other. Peace is the 
fruit of righteousness, and righteousness and peace must flee away together 
from a fierce worldly war for secular power. And the churches must be 
corrupted, too, as evil passions, hatred, and jealousy, and ambition, and 
envy, and revenge, and strife arise and temptations steal away the hearts of 
votaries from the humble service of the " meek and lowly Jesus." Protes- 
tant priestcraft is cousin germain to Catholic ; and where is this to end but 
in giving to our Protestant priests — the worst of them, I mean — such as will 
"put on the livery of heaven to serve the devil in" — a control of political 
power, and thus to biing about the worst union which could be devised, of 
church and state ! The state will prostitute and corrupt any church, and 
any church will enslave any state. Corrupt our Protestant priests as the 
Catholics have been, v.ith temporal and political power, and they will be of 
the same "old leaven" — the same old beast — the same old ox going about 
with straw in his mouth! And where will the war of sects end? When 
the Protestant priests have gotten the power, which of their sects is to prevail.' 
The Catholics proscribed, which denomination next is to fall? The Episco- 
pal church, my mother church, is denounced by some as the bastard daughter 
of the whore of Rome. Is she next to be put upon the list of proscription ? 
And when she is excluded, how are the Predestinarians and Armenians to 
agree among themselves ? Which is to put up the Governor for Virginia or 
the President for the United States? Which is to have the offices, and how 
is division to be made of the spoils ? Sir, this secret association, founded on 
proscription and intolerance, must end in nothing short of corruption and 
persecution of all sects, and in a civil war against the domination of priest- 
craft, Protestant or Catholic. Indeed, it is so, already, that a real reason for 
this secrecy is that the priests, who have a zeal without knowledge against 
the Pope, are unwilling to be seen in their union with this dark-lantern 
movement! Woe, woe, woe! to the hypocrite who leaves the work of his 
Master, the Prince of Peace, the Great High Priest after the order of Mel- 
chisedeck, for a worldly work like this ! 



23 

6th. It is against free civil goverhment, by instituting a secret oligar- s 
chy, beyond the reach of popular and public scrutiny, and supported by \ 
blind instruments of tyranny, bound by test oaths. If the oaths and pro- 
ceedings of induction of members published be true, they bind the noviciates 
from the start to a passive obedience but to one law, the order of intolerance 
and proscription. •Men are led to them by a burning curiosity to know that 
they are to Kiwiv-JS'othing ! The novelty of admission beguiles Ihem into 
adh'erence. They assemble to take oaths and promise to obey. To obey 
whom? Do the masses, will the masses, is it intended that the masses of 
their members shall know whom? Where is the central seat of the Veiled 
Prophet! In New York? New England? or Old England? /Who knows --^ 
that. Know-Nothingism is not influenced by a cabal abroad — by a foreign 
influence ? Whence passes the sign ?— Of course from a common centre 
somewhere. Is that centre in Virginia, for the orders here ? If not, is it 
not alarming that our people in this state are to be swerved by a sign from 
somewhere, anywhere else, to go for this or that side of a cause, for this or 
that candidate for election ? Those orders must have degrees ; the degrees 
are higher and lower, of course, and the higher must prescribe the rule to 
govern" Each degree must have its higher officers, and all the orders must . , 
be subject to some one.' Now, how many persons constitute the select few \l 
of the highest functionaries, nobody knows. Nobody knows who they are, 
where they are, or how many of them there are. They exist somewhere in 
the dark. Their blows can't be guarded against, for they strike, not like 
freemen bold, bravely for rights, but unseen, and to make conquest of 
rights. Their adherents are sworn to secrecy and to obey. They magnify 
tlieir numbers and influence by the very mystery of their organization, and 
the timid and time-serving fly to them for fear of proscription or for hope of 
reward. They quietly warn "friends not to stand in the way of their axe, 
and friends begin to apprehend that it is time to save themselves by Know- 
ing Nothing. They threaten their enemies, and some of their enemies skulk 
from fear of offending them. They alarm a nation, and a nation, with its 
pohtical and church parties, gives them at oncce consideration and respect as - 
a power to be dreaded or courted. Thus, in a night, as it were, has an oli- J 
garchy grown up in secret to control our liberties, to dictate to parties, Jo^ 
gulde'elections, and to pass laws./ They are estabhshing presses, too, but we ^ 
cannot define from their positions a single principle which we can say Know- 
Nothings may not disown and disavow. The Prophet of Khorassan_ never 
gave out words more cabalistic — words to catch by sounds, and sounding the 
very opposite of what they really mean. When they have men's fears, 
curiosity, hopes, the people's voices, the ballot boxes, the press, at their 
command, how long will our minds be free, or persons safe, or property 
secure ? How long will stand the piUars of freedom of speech and of the 
pen, when liberty of conscience is gone and birth is made to " make the 
man ?" He is a dastard, indeed, who fears to oppose an oligarchy or secret 
cabal like this, and loves not human rights well enough to protect them. 

7th. It is opposed to our progress as a nation. No new acquisition can 
ever be made by purchase or conquest, if foreigners or Catholics are in the 
boundaries of the acquired countries ; for, surely we would not seek to take 
jurisdiction over them; to make them slaves; to raise up a distinct class of 
persons to be excluded from the privileges of a Republic. If not for their 
own sakes, for the sake of the Republic we would save ourselves from this 
example. 

As early as 1787, we established a great land ordinance. The most per- 
fect system of eminent domain, of proprietary titles, and of territorial settle- 
ments, which the world had ever beheld to bless the homeless children of 
men. It had the very housew^arming of hospitality in it. It wielded the 



24 

logwood axe, and cleared a continent of forests. It made an exodus in the 
old world, and dotted the new with log-cabins, around the hearths of which 
the tears of the aged and the oppressed were wiped away, and cherub child- 
ren were born to libertv, and sang its son2:s, and have o;rown up in its 
strength and might and majesty. It brought together foreigners of every 
country and clime — immigrants from Europe of every language and religion, 
and its most wonderful effect has been to assimilate all races. Irish and 
German, English and French, Scotch and Spaniard, have met on the western 
prairies, in the western woods, and have peopled villages and towns and 
cities — queen cities, rivalling the marts of eastern commerce; and the Teu- 
tonic and Celtic and Anglo-Saxon races have in a day mingled into one 
undistinguishable mass — and that one is American!" — Ameiican in every 
sense and in every feeling, in every instinct, and in every impulse of Ameri- 
can patriotism. The raw German's ambition is first to acquire land enough 
upon which to send word back to the Baron he left behind him, that he does 
not envy him his principality! 

The Irishman no longer hurra's for " my Lord " or "my Lady," but ex- 
claims in his heart of hearts that "this is a free country." The children of 
all are crossed in blood, in the first generation, so that ethnology can't tell of 
what parentage they are — they all become brother and sister Jonathans — 
Jonathans to sow and plant grain — Jonathans to raise and drive stock — Jona- 
thans to organize townships and counties and states of free election — Jona- 
thans to establish schools and colleges and rear orators, sages and statesmen for 
the Senate — Jonathans to take a true heart aim with the rifle at any foe who 
dares invade a common country — Jonathans to carry conquest of libeity to 
other lands, until the whole earth shall be filled with the glory of American- 
ism ! As in the colonies, as in the revolution, as in the last war, so have 
foreigners and immigrants of every religion and tongue, contributed to build 
up the temple of American law and liberty, until its spire reaches to heaven, 
whilst its shadow rests on earth ! ! If there has been a turnpike road to be 
beaten out of the rocky metal, or a canal to be dug, foreigners and immi- 
grants have been armed with the mattock and the spade ; and, if a battle on sea 
or land had to be fought, foreigners and immigrants have been armed with 
the musket and the blade. So have foreigners and immigrants proved that 
their influence has not impaired the genius, or the grace, or gladness, or glory 
of American institutions. At no time have they warred upon our religion 
in the west, and they have been at peace among themselves. The Pope has 
lost more than he has gained of proselytes by the Catholics coming here. 
No proscription but one has ever disturbed the religious toleranceof the 
•west, and that one was to drive out the religion of an imposter which struck 
at every social relation surrounding it. If Know-Nothings may tolerate 
Mormons, I can't see why they leave ihem to their religious liberty and 
select the very mother church of Protestantism itself for persecution and 
proscription. But the west, I repeat, made up of foreigners and immigrants 
of every religion and tongue, the west is as purely patriotic, as truly Ameri- 
can, as genuinely Jonathan, as any people who can claim our nationality. 
Now, is not here proof in war and in peace that the apprehension of foreign 
influence, brought here by immigrants, is not only groundless but contra- 
dicted by the facts of our settlements and developments ? Did a nation ever 
so grow as we have done under land ordinances and our laws of naturaliza- 
tion ? They have not made aristocracies, but sovereigns and sovereignties 
of the people of the west. They have strengthened the stakes of our do- 
minion and multiplied the sons and daughters of America so that now she 
can muster an army, and maintain it, too, outnumbering the strength of any 
invaders, and making "a host of freedom which is the host of God !" 

Now, shall all this policy and its proud and happy fruits be cast aside 



25 

for a contracted and sclfit^h scheme of intolerance and exclusion? Shall the 
unnumbered sections of our public lands be fenced in against immigrants? 
Shall hospitality be denietl to foreio;n settlers ? Shall no asylum be left open 
to the poor and the oppressed ot^ Europe ? Shall the clearing of our lands 
be stopped ? Shall population be arrested ? Shall progress be made to 
stand still ? Are we surfeited with prosperity? Shall no more territory be 
acquired ? Shall Bermuda be left a mare chiusum of the Gulf of Mexico, 
and Jamaica, a key of South American conquest and acquisition, iii the 
hands of England; Cuba, a depot of domination over the mouth of the 
Mississippi, in the hands of Spain, just strong enough to keep it from us for 
some strong maritime power to seize, whenever they will conquor or force a 
purchase, Central America, in the gate-way of commerce between our 
Atlantic and Pacific possessions — lest foreigners be let in among us, and 
Catholics come to participate in our privileges? Verily, this is a strange 
way to help American institutions and to promote American progress. 
No', w^e have institutions which can embrace a world, all mankind with 
all their opinions, prejudices and passions, however diverse and clash- 
ing, provided we adhere to the law of Christian charity and of free 
toferation. But the moment we dispense with these laws, the pride, and 
progress, and glory, and good of American institutions will cease forever, and 
the°memory of them will but goad the affections of their mourners. Self- 
ishness, utter selfishness alone, can enjoy these American blessings, M'ithout 
desiring that all mankind shall participate in their glorious privileges. Noth- 
ing, nothing is so dangerous to them, nothing can destroy them so soon and 
so certainly, as secret societies, formed for political and religious end.^^ com- 
bined, founded on proscription and intolerance, without necessity, against 
law, against the spirit of the Christian Reformation, against the whole scope 
of Protestantism, against the faith, hope, and charity of the Bible, against 
the peace and purity of the churches; against free government by leading 
to oligarchy and a union of church and state ; against human progress, 
against national acquisitions, against American hospitality and comitj', 
against American maxims of expatriation, and allegiance and protection, 
against American settlements and land ordinances, against Americanism in 
every sense and shape ! 

Lastly. What are the evils complained of, to make a pretext for these 
innovations against American policy, as heretofore practised with so much 
success and such exceeding triumph? 

1st. The first cause, most prominent, is that the native and Protestant 
feeling has been exasperated by the course pursued by both political parties, 
in thelast several Presidential campaigns ; they have cajoled and " honey- 
fugir/efl' with both Catholics and foreigners by birth, naturalized and un- 
naturalized, ad nauseam. 

Foreigners and Catholics were not so much to blame for that as both par- 
ties. And take these election toys from them, and does any one suppose 
that they would not resort to some other humbug ? Is not another hobby 
now arising to put down both of these pets of party ? Is not the donkey 
of Know-Nothingism now kicking its heels at the lap-dogs of the " rich 
Irish brogue" and the "sweet German accent," for the fondlings and pet- 
tings of political parties? 

2nd. Both parties have violated the election laws and laws of naturaliza- 
tion, in rushing green emigrants, just from on ship-board, up to the polls 
to vote. 

This, again, is the fault of both parlies. And this is confined chielly, if 
not entirely, to the cities. It don't reach to the ballot boxes of the country at 
large, and is rot a drop in the ocean of our political iniluence. In New 
York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cincinnati, and New Orleans, the abuse, I 



( 



26 

venture to say, don't number, in fact, 500 votes. It is nothing everywhere 
else, in a country of universal suffrage and of twenty millions of free peo- 
ple. And would perjury and fraud in elections be arrested by the attempt 
to exclude Catholics and foreigners by birth from office ? — or, by extending 
the limitation of time for naturalization ? — or, by repealing the naturaliza- 
tion laws ? Either of these remedies for the error would innltiply the per- 
juries and the frauds and the foreign votes. Then there would be a pre- 
text for obtaining by fraud and force what was denied under law. By mak- 
ing naturalization rather to follow immediately upon the oath of allegiance, 
and that to depend on the will and the good character of the applicant, 
fraud and perjury would rather be stripped of their pretexts. The foreign- 
ers would be at once exalted in their self-respect and dignity of deportment, 
right would enable them to exercise the elective franchise in peace, and the 
country would escape the demoralization resulting from a violation of the 
laws, and from the means employed to set at nought their force and effect. 

3rd. Foreigners have abused the protection of the United States abroad. 

If they have, it was a violation of law. They cannot well do it, without 
the want of care and vigilance in our consular and diplomatic functionaries 
abroad. Citizens at home abuse our protection, and they are not always 
punished for their crimes. 

4th. Catholics, it is urged, have been combined and obeyed the signs of 
tlieir bishops and priests in elections, and have been influenced in their 
votes to a great extent by religious and exclusive considerations. 

If they have, that is one of the best reasons why Protestants should not 
follow their example. It is evil, and the less there is of it the better for all. 
Let bigotry and proscription belong to any sect rather than to Protestants. 
When they follow alleged Catholic examples, which they arraign, as danger- 
ous and mischievous, then they themselves become as Catholics, according 
to their own opinions, dangerous and mischievous. 

.5th. Catholics and Catholic governments, it is urged, have always ex- 
cluded Protestants from religious and social privileges in their countries. 

And how much have we gained upon them by following the opposite poli- 
cy? -By tolerance we have grown so great as now to make them feel the 
necessity to respect our title to comity and right to a separate enjoyment of 
the privileges of Protestants. Our government is interposing in that behalf, 
and I fear it will not be assisted any in its negotiations by the attempt here 
to proscribe Catholics and strangers by birth. 

6th. It is complained that in some instances, in New York particularly, 
the Catholics have been arrogant, exclusive and anti-republican in their at- 
tempts to control the public schools, and to exclude from them the free and 
open study of the word of God. 

Plow can this bigotry be subdued by bigotry, which retires itself in secrecy 
and proscribes all who don't proscribe Catholics ? There is no hoincepathy 
in moral disease. Proscription and bigotry and secrecy must not be prescrib- 
ed for the maladies of proscription, bigotry, and hiding of the word ! The 
diseases would then be epidemics among Protestants, Catholics, and all. 
The open and lawful and liberal means for either prevention or correction of 
this evil are simple and efficacious if righteously applied. 

7th. It is urged that Catholics recognize the supremacy of the Pope and 
submission to priestcraft, which might, under circumstances, be destructive 
of our free government. 

Suppose that to be so, there are worse sects among us, whom Know-Noth- 
ings pretend not to assail. There are the Mormon polygamists ; there are 
the necromancers of Spiritual Rappings ; and there is a sect which aspires 
not only to destroy free government, but the great globe and all that it in- 
habit — the millenial Millerites. And, it is about as likely that Millerites will 



27 

set the world on fire in one day, as tiiat Popery will ever be able to break up 
or bow down this republic. The prophecies must all fail, and Christ's dominion 
upon earth must cease, and printing presses and telegraphs and steam must 
be lost to the arts, and revolutions must go backwards, and the sky must fall 
and catch Know-Nothings, before the times of Revelations are out, and the 
Pope catches "Uncle Sam." 

No, no, no — there is not a reason in all these complaints, which is not 
satisfied by our laws as they exist, and not an error, which may not be cor- 
rected by the proper application of the lawful authority at our command, 
without resorting to the extraordinary, extrajudicial, revolutionary, and anti- ^ 
American plan of a secret society of intolerance and proscription. 

I belono- to a secret society, but for no political purpose. I am a native 
Yivgimiin^irihcs et in cide, iiYh-gmim-, my ancestors on both sides for two 
hunllred years were citizens of this country and this state — half English, half 
Scotch. I am a Protestant by birth, by baptism, by intellectual belief and 
by education and by adoption. I am an American, in every fibre and m every 
feeling an American; yet in every character, in every relation, in every 
eenseTwith all my head, and all my heart, and all my might, I protest 
ao-ainst this secret organization of native Americans, and of Protestants to 
proscribe Roman Catholic and naturalized citizens ! 

Now, will they proscribe me? 

That question weighs not a feather with 

Your obedient servant, 

HENRY A. WISE. 



THE FIRST APPEARAXCE OF KNOW-NOTHINGISM IN 

VIRGINIA. 

It is unknown to the unitiated at what precise time Know-Nothingism 
made its entrance into Virginia ; but, from the most reliable information we 
can gather, the first council w-as organized in the town of Clrarlottcsville, 
some time in the month of July, 1854, and very soon after another in the city 
of Richmond. These councils, in pursuance to the Know-Nothing Ritual, were 
organized by the authority of the Grand Council of Thirteen of the city of 
New York. From this time until about the latter part of October, we have no 
newspaper account of operations. But during this interim of nearly three 
months, it is our impression that the Grand Council of Thirteen was very 
industriously organizing councils in the various towns and cities of the state. 
After the state had become well checkered with councils, the Grand Council 
of Thirteen delegated one Rev. Mr. Evans to establish a state council in the 
city of Richmond. This state council was empowered by the parent body in 
New York to grant charters for the establishment of councils in every nook 
and corner of the state ; and the consequence was, that in nearly every 
secluded grove, retired school-house, and concealed recess, could be found a 
band of men, veiled in secrecy and under the cover of darkness, administer- 
ing Jesuitical oaths and teaching cabalistic signs to the thoughtless, indis- 
creet and unsuspecting noviciates. The citizens of this commonwealth 
should keep it fresh in their minds, that a portion of her citizens were once 
engaged in the work of palming upon them a political heresy, through the 



28 

instrumentality of a Northern emissary, coming under the specious guise and 
cloak of religion. New York was the hot bed of corruption from which a 
northern plague was to sweep the home and resting-place of Washington 
and Jefferson. The Richmond Enquirer noticed, in the following spirited 
manner, tiie organization of the state council by the Rev. Evans, of New 
York : 

Know-Nothing Council in Richmond. — ft is not generally known, we 
suspect, that a state council of the Know-Nothing order is to be held in 
this city to-day. In spite of the severe secrecy of their movements, this 
fact has transpired ; and with it comes the additional intelligence that one 
Reverend Mr. Evans is present as representative of the "Grand National 
Council of Thirteen," of which Barker of New York is President. This 
emissary brings along a redundant supply of the venom of intolerance, 
"wherewith to inoculate the brethren in tliis region and to corrupt the native 
generosity of the Vii'ginia character. He imports, also, a copious supply 
of pass-words and other cabalistic signs, and is in every way equipped for 
the work of drill-sergeant and hierophant. Is it not a shame that such crea- 
tures should come here, and, under cover of darkness, deposit the poison of 
intolerance and proscription on the soil which Jefferson has consecrated to 
civil liberty and to freedom of conscience .? The movements of the order 
are diiected and controlled by a cabal in New York, and thus, should Know- 
Nothingism triumph in this state, the government of Virginia will be the 
creature of the " Council of Thirteen." Esteeming themselves competent 
to the management of their own affairs, Virginians have been proverbially 
jealous of foreign influence ; nor will they now submit to the usurpation of 
this conclave of New^ York Know-Nothings. The sentiment of state-sove- 
reignty and the pride of personal independence are equally outraged by the 
attempt thus to subjugate us. 

Our neighbor of the Dispatch, with commendable forethought, has warned 
persons attending the Fair against the depredations of the thieves w-ho rifle 
pockets in the confusion of the crowd. It is our business to admonish all 
good citizens of the presence of the Know-Nothings, who, adopting the cun- 
ning artifice of pick-pockets and burglars, have availed themselves of the 
confusion and excitement of this occasion, to mature their plot against the 
security of society.- 



THE STAUNTON DEMOCKATIC CONVENTION. 

After the claims of the various candidates spoken of for Governor had 
been thoroughly discussed through the public journals, delegates were sent 
from various counties of the state to meet in Convention at the town of 
Staunton, November 30th, 1854, for the purpose of making a proper selec- 
tion of candidates for the office of Governor, Lieut. Governor and Attorney 
General. This Convention was one of the largest and most talented that 
ever assembled In the state for a political purpose. 

Its proceedings were very animated. Parties soon resolved themselves 
into two, one of them supporting Mr. Wise, the other Mr. Leakk. Its 
session lasted three days, and Mr. Wise w'as not nominated until the morn- 
ing of the third and last day. As its proceedings were marked by great 



29 

excitement and warmtli of feeling, and only an elaborate and detailed rehear- 
sal of them, too voluminous for our space, could do justice to all who partici- 
pated in the debates and ballotings, we shall confine ourselves to a mere 
skeleton recital of its leading transactions. 

The Convention was organized by the appointment of Oscar M. Crutch- 
field, Speaker of the House of Delegates, President, and Wm. F. Ritchie, 
editor of the Enquirer, and Ro. W. Hughes, editor of the Examiner, Secre- 
taries. 

The great debate and turning point of everything done by the Convention 
was upon the original resolution presented by Mr. Shackelford, and upon an 
amendment which was oflered by JMr. Garnett, of Essex, to the same. 

Mr. Shackelford's resolution was — 

Resolved, That this Convention will not make a nomination for Governor, 
Lieutenant Governor, or Attorney General, unless the candidate receive 
votes of this Convention sufficient to represent a majority of the whole Dem- 
ocratic vote of the state. 

To this resolution, Mr. Muscoe R. H. Garnett, of the county of Essex, 
■who was the leader of Mr. Wise's friends, offered the following amendment : 

Resolved, That it shall require a majority of the votes cast to nominate 
candidates for Governor, Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General. 

This amendment was opposed with great ability by many of the leading 
men of the Convention. The speeches of Messrs. Fauntleroy, Irving, 
Aylett, James Barbour, N. C. Claiborne, J. W. Massie and W. H. Harman 
were of great ability and eloquence. It was the most spirited and able 
off-hand debate that ever transpired in a political convention. The 
debate was continued into the night of Thursday, the 30th November, 
1854, the first day of the session. The vote was then taken, and was scaled 
on the principle of allowing each county represented a number equal to its 
Democratic vote in the presidential election of 1852. The process of scaling 
the vote was so tedious, that the Convention adjourned over until the next 
morning in order to allow the secretaries time to compute the result. 

Friday, Dec. 1. — On the meeting of the Convention this morning, the 
result of the vote on Garnett's amendment was announced as follows: 

For the amendment, 35,212 

Against the amendment, 26,194 



Majority, 9,018 

So decided was the opposition manifested to this result, and to the amend- 
ment, that a re-considcration was at once moved, and a long and most ani- 
mated debate was kept up through the greater portion of the day. Finally, 
a second vote was taken on the same proposition as at first with the follow- 
ing result : 

> For the amendment, 32,903 

Against it, 29,059 

Majority, 3,844 



30 

This vote, of course, settled the question, and the Convention decided 
that the majority of the votes cast in the Convention should nominate a can- 
didate for the party — without reference to thirty unrepresented counties. 

The contest on this important proposition was warm and excited from the 
fact Ihat the adoption of Garnett's amendment was equivalent to the nomina- 
tion of Mr. Wise ; while the adoption of Shackelford's resolution, if not 
equivalent to the nomination of Mr. Leake, by requiring a vote larger than Mr. 
Wise's friends could have polled, would have resulted in the nomination of 
a compromise candidate. 

This amendment having been adopted, the Convention proceeded at once to 
the nomination of a candidate for the ofhce of governor. 

Mr. Douglas, of New Kent, put Mr. H. A. Wise in nomination, and Mr. 
N. C. Claiborne, of Franklin, presented the name of Shelton V. Leake. Pro- 
minent among the speakers during the evening were Messrs. Berry of Alex- 
andria, Fauntleroy of Winchester, Skinner of Augusta, Brown of Kanawha, 
Browne of Stafford, Meade of Petersburg, Kenna of Kanawha, and English 
of Logan. 

All of these speeches were creditable, and many of them eloquent and tell- 
ing. It cannot be said that they were sermons inculcating doctrines of affec- 
tion and brotherly love. Although the speakers were personally courteous, 
yet their political reviews, comments, &.c., on public men were the bitterest 
it is ever one's fortune to listen to. An excited audience, by loud applause 
and boisterous manifestations of approbation and displeasure, rendered the 
whole scene one of extraordinary excitement. The large badly lighted hall 
seemed the theatre of the bitterest and most envenomed feelings during this 
long and acrimonious debate. Such a scene was never presented in a Dem- 
ocratic Convention before, and we hope never will be presented again. Tli« 
most violent and pointed assaults upon the prominent men of our own party 
were the most loudly applauded. 

Late on the night of the second day of the session a vote was taken, and 
the Convention adjourned over until the next morning. 

Saturday, Dec. 2. — The first thing done was the announcement of tha 
vote for the nominees for Governor, as follows : 

H. A. Wise, 
S. F. Leake, 
Wm. Smith, 
Alex. R. HoUaday, 
J. A. Seddon, 
Faulkner, 

63,289 
Necessary to a choice 31,645. 
Wise falling short of a majority 229. 
Some further debate took place. Ex-Governor Smith was put in nomi- 
nation by Mr. Hiner, of Pendleton, and withdrawn. Finally another vota 
was taken, and the result was — 



31,416 


25,762 


2,125 


1,236 


2,491 


259 



31 

Wise, 34,034 

Leake, 28,009 

Scddori, 973 

Holladay, 67 

Smith, 290 

63,373 

Necessary to a choice 31,687. 
Majority for Wise 2,347. 

And Mr. Wise, was declared to be nominated. 

The result of the second ballot was announced on Saturday afternoon, and 
in consequence of changes in the vote of Halifax and Greenbrier, Mr. Wisa 
was nominated, getting a majority of 2,347. A proposition to make it unan- 
imous failed. 

The Convention then proceeded to the nomination of a candidate for the 
office of Lieut. Governor. 

Dr. C. R. Harris of Augusta, A. G. Pendleton of Giles, Henry A. Ed- 
mundson of Roanoke, Elisha W. McConias of Kanawha, and Dan'l H. 
Hoge of Montgomery, were all put in nomination ; but all except Dr. Harris 
and Mr. Pendleton were afterw^ards withdraw^n. After zealous and urgent 
appeals for the candidates, a vote was taken, and the result was — 

Harris, 29,126 

Pendleton, 27;859 

McComas, 1,121 

Edmundson, 2,880 

Hoge, 1,015 

Necessary to a choice, 31,002. 
No election. 
The names of Dr. Harris and Mr. Pendleton were withdrawn. 
Mr. McComas was again put in nomination, and Col. W. H. Harman was 
also nominated. A spirited series of eulogies of the nominees ensued, and 
the vote being taken, was announced, after a recess, as follows : 

McComas, 32,520 

Harman, 26,447 

Mr. McComas was declared duly nominated ; and on motion of Col. Har- 
man the nomination was made unanimous. 

W. P. Bocock, the then Attorney General, was re-nominated by accla- 
mation. 

Mr. McComas being present addressed the Convention. 

The following resolution was adopted: 

Resolved, That the official career of Franklin Pierce has been marked by 
a perfect observance of the limitations of the Constitution and an entire 
fidelity to the principles upon which he came into power; and therefore ha 
is entitled to the confidence of the friends of Constitutional Liberty in every 
section of the Confederacy. 

So the result of the proceedings of the Convention was the following 

tickcjt I 

For Governor— HENRY A. WISE, of Accomac. 

For Lieut. Governor— ELISHA W. McCOMAS, of Kanawha. 

For Attorney General— WILLIS P. BOCOCK, of Richmond. 



32 

The Convention adjourned si7ie die a little after twelve o'clock at night, 
the Chairman making a brief valedictory address. The closing scenes were 
quite uproarious, but not acrimonious as those at an earlier period of the 
session had been. 



COMMENTS OF THE PRESS UPON THE STAUNTON NOMINEES. 

These nominations did not give general satisfaction to Ihe Democratic 
party throughout the state. The principal objection was to Mr. Wise who 
had voted for the Whig nominees in 1840, and been a very warm op- 
ponent of General Jackson in Congress. Although Mr. Wise had been a 
strict adherent to the party since 1841, and been honored as a public ser- 
vant by John Tyler and James K. Polk, and performed efficient service on 
various occasions; yet it was the disposition of many not to give him their 
support. He was held up to the party as an inconsistent, self-willed, dan- 
gerous, and unstable man. The Know-Nothings affected great satisfaction at 
the result of the Staunton deliberations. No candidate*ever went before the 
people for any office under more discouraging circumstances than Mr. Henry 
A. Wise. Never was a candidate before so little understood, or so much 
misrepresented and slandered; but we shall see how gallantly and success- 
fully he surmounted these difficulties : 

From the (Rockingham) Valley Democrat. 

Our Nominees. — In obedience to the behest of the Democratic Conven- 
tion held in Staunton last week, we proudly throw our banner to the breeze, 
inscribed on its ample folds the names of Wise, McComas and BococK, 
the chosen standard-bearers of the Democratic party in the coming guberna- 
torial contest. 

We frankly acknowledge the nominations are not our first choice. We 
preferred others, and endeavored to secui-e their nomination in Convention. 
We, however, were disappointed in our wishes, the majority thinking the 
above ticket the most acceptable one to be recommended to the Democracy 
of Virginia. We, therefore, surrender our predilections upon the altar of 
our party, and shall use our utmost exertions to secure the election of the 
ticket. 

_ It cannot be denied by any that the ticket is composed of men of the 
highest order of intellect. They are men around whom any party may be 
proud to rally. Our candidate for governor, Henry A. Wise, the fearless 
tribune of the people, will sweep the state like an avalanche. As an emi- 
nent Southern and fearless advocate of civil and religious liberty we could 
desire no better leader. His eloquent voice will summon the Democracy to 
the contest like the red cross of Murdock the sons of Clan-Alpine to tlie 
fight. It will arouse the latent energies of the old and excite the enthusiasm 
of the young — a blaze of enthusiastic fire will burn from every crag and from 
every cliff, and be reflected from the broad waters of the Ohio to the billowy 
ocean. Its echoes, like the shrill whistle of Rhoderick Dhu, will arouse the 
Democracy from the lowlands and the highlands, before whose resistless 
march the contemptible ism of the day and miserable trumperies of an hour 
will be scattered like autumnal leaves before the rao-ins: whirlwind. 



33 

We deem it superfluous to spealc of his political character. In the halls 
of legishition he has won a national reputation, and stands before the country 
as a brilliant orator and accomplished statesman. Like Portia, his private 
character is above reproach. The breath of suspicion has not even dared to 
dim its lustre and brightness. 

Our candidate for Lieutenant Governor, E. W. McComas, is a young 
man of ability and of the strictest integrity. As a member of the late Re- 
form Convention he distinguished himself as an able and eloquent debater, 
and fearless advocate of the people's rights. He is eminently qualified for 
the position, and cannot fail to make an excellent presiding officer of the 
ienate. He has borne the flag of his country on the burning plains of Mex- 
ico, and won the. distinction of a brave and generous soldier. He will ably 
sustain the leader of the Democracy in bearing aloft the democratic banner, 
and is entitled and should receive the cordial support of the democratic party 
of Virginia. 

The name of Willis P. Bocock, our candidate for Attorney General, is 
familiar to the people of Virginia. He has proven himself to be a sound and 
able lawyer, pre-eminently qualified for the position to which he has been 
elevated. We trust the democracy will honor him again with their confi- 
dence. 

Our candidates are now in the field, and it behooves every lover of demo- 
cratic principles to buckle on his armor and go forth to battle against the 
hosts of Federalism and Know-Nothingism. The old flag ship of democracy 
must be kept on the old democratic platfortr of Jefferson and Madison. If 
the democracy do their duty we doubt not the r'^sult. With such chivalric 
spirits as Wise, McComas and Bocock as leaders, the democratic party 
proudly go forth to the battle, and challange our opponents to marshal their 
forces under whatever flag they may see proper. We care not whether it- 
be under the banner of Federalism or the contemptible, droopino- and 
cowardly oriflamb of Know-Nothingism ; we shall meet them with the same 
pleasure, confident that our gallant champions will fearlessly and gallantly 
bear the States-Rights banner triumphantly to victory. 

Democrats of the Tenth Legion ! sleep not at your posts! If you would 
fulfil the just expectations of your party, and acquit yourselves with credit, 
you must prepare for the contest. Let action, action! be your motto — plant 
the standard of democracy upon every hill-top and in every valley, and rally 
beneath its broad folds, with unity of feeling and sentiment, for Wise, 
McComas and Bocock. 

Not less emphatic w^as the endorsem.ent of the Richmond Examiner,, 
which had most earnestly, of all the Democratic journals, remonstrated 
against the nomination of Mr. Wise. We extract its declaration of adhesion 
to the Staunton nominations: 

From the Richmond Examiner of December 8th, 1S54. 

We should feel sorry, indeed, if there could be any doubt as to the course 
we and those who acted with us at Staunton shall pursue in the canvass now 
commenced. We shall go for the ticket. We have attested the sincerity of 
our preferences for men, openly, honestly and sufficiently. We have done 
so without reference to the maxim which modern political ethics have made 
a cardinal rule of conduct with successful candidates, that they have friends 
to reward and enemies to punish ; for we went to Staunton under the convic- 
tion that we should not be able to overcome the vote by which our preferences 
were defeated. The question between men has been decided against us by 
regular and authoritative adjudication. The only question now is between 
the ticket of the Republican party of Virginia and that of the opposition \o 
3 



34 

it, of whatever hue, form and creed. There is but one honorable choice ; 
and, whether the opposition comes from the bosom of the Democratic party 
itself, or the dark caverns of secret conspiracy, or the veteran, scarred ranks 
of the ancient, open, declared Whig adversary, or from all quarters com- 
bined, we shall defend the Staunton nominations. 

We have no fulsome eulogy for the distinguished nominees. We are 
more skilled in the language of censure than of laudation. Panegyric is not 
our forte, nor man-worship our besetting sin. But we will say, that Mr. 
Wise is eminently worthy of the confidence and support of the Virginia 
people. His brilliant qualities as a man will reflect lustre upon the office for 
which he is recommended. He is a man to whom we have never felt but 
one objection personally, and that was, that though as sound in politics now 
as the strictest Republican of the Virginia school, his career had been incon- 
sistent and his record contradictory in a manner and to a degree which ren- 
dered it difficult for the party speakers and writers in this canvass to defend 
him, according to the old mode of party reasoning. We have said this fre- 
quently, and v/e do not mean to unsay it in the canvass at hand. But of all 
claims to public office, those of the mere party men are the flimsiest and 
most wretched. Consistency, in the mere party sense — that of having voted 
the party ticket blind, on all occasions, %'right or wrong, through thick and 
thin — that of having sworn and argued that a measure was right whenever it 
was endorsed by party, and wrong whenever not — consistency of this base, 
cheap, description, is anything but "a jewel." The man who is ever faith- 
ful to his own convictions, scorning to submit his judgment to the behests 
either of party or of any other influence but his own conscience, is a true 
man, and is very apt to be fit recipient of public trust. The man who holds 
no opinion of his own, and who boasts to have never differed from his party 
in any act or thought of his life, is more apt to be a demagogue than a states- 
man. True consistency lies in fidelity to one's convictions of duty, however 
changing; and he is the safe politician who boldly avows and bravely adheres 
to those convictions under all circumstances. It is remarked that all the really 
great women the world has produced have held peculiar notions on the point 
of virtue. It is certain that the greatest statesmen of our country have been 
distinguished for their political inconsistency. Even Jefferson himself repu- 
diated in the w'ritings from Monticello the anti-slavery principles to which 
the prime of his life had been devoted. Jackson went into the executive 
office advocating some of the worst measures of the Federalists, proclaimed 
during his administration the most alarming and arrogant Federal dogmas, 
and yet laid down the reins of government with the merited reputation of a 
hero and champion of state rights. Calhoun, the honest politician, the Cato 
of his day, may be quoted on both sides of almost every great measure of 
public jx)licy. Honesty, fidelity, capacity — the JefTersonian tests — these, at 
last, are the true qualifications for office. Consistency, in the vulgar accep- 
tation, belongs oftener to the demagogue and ignoramus than to the honest 
politician and the capable statesman. Those high personal qualities which 
make us love, admire, and trust in men, belong oftener to the rash, impul- 
sive and brave, than to the cautious, calculating, and "consistent." If j^ou 
judge Mr. Wise by the acts of his life, we admit that, in our opinion, he has 
few claims to consistency. But if you judge him by the impulses of his 
nature, and the fidelity and chivalric bravery of his adherence to them, the 
verdict in his favor is emphatic and beyond question. 

The political horizon is filled with admonitions of trouble. The recent 
elections at the north reveal a state of feeling very portent^ous to the south. 
We are upon the eve of times which will try men's soul^. Let us have a 
tried, brave, true southern man in the executive office of Virginia. At a 
time like this, let us look to the metal of our men, rather than to their 



35 

"records." The Democracy of Virginia have declared at Staunton that 
they care not for political antecedents or partisan animosities, twenty years 
gone by, in the presence of the danger now threatening the south. They 
have resolved that old and obsolete diflcrences, such as used to divide them 
from their political opponents at home, are not to be remembered against the 
true southern man in a contest upon that issue above all other issues — north- 
ern aggression against southern rights, 

There is significance in the nomination of Mr. Wise. The Democracy of 
of Virginia have resolved, in disregard of past domestic animosities and old 
differences of opinion, to manifest their stern, uncompromising temper on the 
sectional issue by the man they mean to place at the head of affairs. When 
we make Henry A. Wise governor of Virginia, the north will know what we 
mean. 

Mr. McComas is comparatively a young man ; but has already distin- 
guished himself by valuable public service. He has fought gallantly and 
won enviable laurels upon the field of battle. He was a member of the Re- 
form Convention of 1850-51 ; and served with credit to himself and to the 
satisfaction of his constituents. He has always been a zealous advocate of 
the doctrines of State Rights; and, since he was entitled to a vote, has been 
an active, efficient and consistent Democrat. 

Mr. Bocock has already passed the ordeal of the polls; and has proved 
an industrious, faithful and eminently able officer. The testimony to his 
efficiency, capacity and industry in the office of Attorney General, is unqual- 
ified and conclusive, and is alike creditable to himself and to the party which 
conferred the office upon bim. 

The reasons in favor of rallying to this ticket are conclusive; and we in- 
voke all the Democracy of Virginia to a zealous and active support of it. 
W"e repeat our sincere and candid opinions : The party will do its duty : — 
There is no danger of defeat. 



CONFIDENCE OF THE OPPOSITION. 

The opposition v.'ere so confident that the Staunton state ticket had produced 
schism and discord in the Dem.ocratic ranks, that the Richmond Whig made 
bold to forewarn the Democracy of their coming fate, in the following 
language : 

" The indications of public sentiment throughout the country, as far as we 
can gather it, from the tone of the Whig and Democratic press, and from 
our private correspondence, foreshadow a gloomy prospect for the nominees 
of the Staunton Convention. In the Whig ranks there is union of senti- 
ment, harmony of action, and resolution of purpose ; in the Democratic 
ranks there is discord, apprehension, and a general and growing mistrust. 
* * * We can assure our neighbor that the great W^hig party is vital ia 
its existence — firmly united — and fully prepared for a successful campaign. 
At the proper time, and in due form, and with united forces, it will unfold its 
banner, and we fear nothing for its success." 

As soon as it was known in other parts of the Union that the Democracy 
of Virginia were ready for the conflict, with the hitherto invincible Know- 
Nothings, all eyes were turned upon the state. It was well known that the 
Democracy had to contend with a formidable, wily and insidious enemy, 
flushed with victory. The Democratic party felt its danger and the respon- 



36 

sibility of its position. Their brethren of the southern states felt a deep 
anxiety for the success of the Democracy of a state that had always repu- 
diated and withstood Federalism in all its Protean characters. The Wash, 
ington Sentinel contained the following article counseling the party against 
the snares of the enemy, the boasts of the new party, and calling upon Vir- 
ginia to preserve her escutcheon untarnished : 

The Virginia Elections. — The state of Virginia is regarded at this time 
with great interest by all parties. In a few months elections for state ofTi- 
cers and members of Congress will be held, and more than ordinary prepa- 
rations are now being made for the opening canvass. The ancient renown 
of that venerable commonwealth, her undeviating consistency, and her poli- 
tical influence, attract to her a large share of public attention. 

Thoroughly and consistently Democratic, as she has ever been, the Demo- 
crats are naturally solicitous that she should maintain that character. When 
other states have faltered and fallen, she has been irue and unflinching, and 
hence it would be a signal triumph for the opposition if they could gain her. 
To that triumph they proudly and ambitiously aspire. Already they begin 
to boast. Months in advance of the election, here in Washington, they be- 
gin to claim the victory. They have rolls, lists and records. In imagination 
they have elected their governor and stricken down several Democratic 
members of Congress. They give the figures with great precision, and 
holdlv aver, that all arrangements to secure their success have been com- 
pletely consummated. 

It is meet that the free citizens of Virginia should know that grand coun- 
cils have gravely assembled to decide for whom they shall vote, and that 
instructions have been issued which they are imperiously required to obey. 
The time was when they owed allegiance to their state. That time has 
passed. The time was, when they announced their opinions and their pur- 
poses in the open streets and in the public highways. That time, too, has 
passed. Those mysterious men who sprung up from the gutters of New 
York and commenced their remarkable career by carrying city elections, 
have swept with a success almost unparalleled the abolitionized state of 
Massachusetts, where Democrats were odious, and even Free Soil Whigs 
were wanting in rankness — these mysterious men have taken the good old 
state of V^irginia under their especial guardianship. In the secret lodges — 
at the midnight conclaves, in Boston and in New York, in Chicago and Syra- 
cuse, they pray and they weep over the proud old commonwealth. They 
have vowed to win her, and no effort will be spared to execute that vow. 
We are told that here in Washington plans have been consummated by 
which the fate of Democracy in Virginia is sealed ! Of course we attach 
no importance to the information. It is but the boast that is designed to dis- 
courage Democrats and encourage the opposition. 

The opposition ! What is it ? It is not that old and respectable and 
avowed Whig opposition that we were wont to encounter, with Bank, Tariff 
and Distribution inscribed on its banners. It is not that opposition that Clay led 
and Webster battled for. It is a fusion, an amalgation of isms. For the 
first time fusion is proposed in Virginia. For the first time an ism has 
dared to rear its crest in that ancient Dominion. 

Those who join this opposition will not do as our opponents of the olden 
time were accustomed to do. They will not stand up and declare their sen- 
timents like freemen. When these men meet in the open streets and the 
public highways, they will give mysterious signals — that none but the initi- 
ated can understand. They dare not talk out like honest men. 

Has the Old Dominion fallen so low that her sons are afraid to proclaim 



37 

their sentiments? Are thone who are wont to Intercliange their opinions on 
public affairs, when they met at court greens, at country stores, or at cross 
roads, struck dumb by a secret and a despotic association that had its origin 
in a distant state, with different institutions? We devoutly pray that no 
such degeneracy will curse that good old state, whose greatest fault has been 
that she uttered her sentiments too boldly. 

Yet, it cannot be denied that the opposition to Democracy, in Vir- 
ginia, has resolved itself into this mysterious organization. Most of 
those who were Whigs, are Whigs no longer. Without pretending 
to be convinced of the unsoundness of their principles, they have 
renounced those principles, and gone over to a party- that professes its 
willingness to support either a Bank or an anti-Bank, a Tariff or anti-Tariff, 
a Distribution or an anti-Distribution man. Indeed, although nearly the 
whole of those who belong to this opposition to the Democracy of Virginia 
are Whigs, they declare, privately and publicly, that they would rather sup- 
port Democratic than Whig candidates. Two contradictions are involved in 
this declaration. First, that being Whigs, they should prefer Democrats ; 
and, secondly, that, prefering Democrats, they should oppose the regular 
Democratic nominees. This contradiction, or rather these contradictions, 
are explained in this way : They want to get disappointed and disaffected 
Democrats to run against the regular nominees, in order to relieve them- 
selves of the odium of being a Whig organization, and in order to entice 
Democrats into that organization. 

But we are happy to say that the better sort of Whigs — those M'ho scorn 
impure alliances, those who love open honesty and manly independence, and 
who will not agree to be controlled by a secret society that sprang up outside 
of Virginia and in an anti-slavery state, will not act in conjunction with this 
opposition. They will do as many of the strongest Whigs of Illinois did in 
the recent election in that state. They will vote for the Democratic candi- 
dates. If they are forced to quit their party, they will rather vote with an 
open, a manly, and an honest party, than with a secret and a mysterious 
order that has disbanded and scattered them. ; A state rights Whig is more 
a Democrat than a Know-Nothing. 



THE CRY OF DISAFFECTION. 

A report was industriouily circulated throughout the state that many of 
the most prominent men of the party were not only dissatisfied with the 
Staunton ticket, but would not give it their support. This had not only a 
great tendency to dissatisfy a large portion of the masses, but almost threat- 
ened a rupture, the very object aimed at by the Know-Nothing party. 
The report was false. It was true that there were some dissatisfied individ- 
uals who had had the confidence of the Democratic party; but these were, for 
the most part, or had been regarded, to use a popular term, as " fishy." It was 
these persons, claiming prominence and position in the party, and considering 
their claims for ofhce and honor overlooked, that exhibited these disloyal pro- 
clivities. But the report was wholly untrue in regard to the sound members of 
the party. The Charlottesville Jeffersonian disposed in the following very 
effectual manner of the report in regard to several prominent and influential 
men: 



38 

From the Charlottesville Jeffersonian. 

One of the many means resorted to by the Whigs, in order to produce 
disafFection in the Democratic party towards their nominees, is the state- 
ment which has been going the rounds of the opposition press, to the effect 
that five of the Democratic members of Congress from Virginia, (viz:) 
Messrs. Bayly, Letcher, McMullen, Smith and Powell, would not sustain 
the nomination of Mr. Wise. Now, for the satisfaction of our Democratic 
friends, we are authorized to state upon authentic information, that this ru- 
mor is a sheer fabrication of the enemies of the Democratic party, and that 
all the above named gentlemen, together with the entire Virginia delegation 
in Congress, will 'support Mr. Wise and the rest of the ticket. We Avere 
assured by Mr. Powell himself, in a personal interview Avith him, that the 
entire ticket would receive his support. The friends of Mr. Leake should 
not permit any such influences to induce them to withhold their support from 
the nominee of our party. We have been assured by Mr. Leake himself, 
that he, too, would give a zealous support to the nomination of Mr. Wise, 
and he urf!;es that all of his friends should do likewise ; since, in refusing to 
support Mr. Wise, they may lose everything, and cannot by possibility gain 
anything. They may not only lose the governor, but also their delegates to 
the Legislature, and their representatives in Congress. Issues of momen- 
tous importance depend upon the triumph of the Democracy in the approach- 
ing election. The New York Herald and its co-adjutors boast that they 
have for the present prostrated the administration party in the North, and 
they urge upon their friends in Virginia by all means to defeat Mr. Wise, or 
they regard his election as a test of the strength of the administration, 
and of Democratic States Rights principles in Virginia. They regard 
Mr. Wise as a champion of the administration in its support of the 
constitutional guarantees of the South. They know, moreover, that his 
election would crush out Nnow-Nothingism in this section of the Union, and 
would present an impassable barrier to tlie progress of that fusion which in 
the North has resulted in the election of a majority of anti-Nebraska and 
anti-Fugitive Slave Law men to Congress. Hence their anxiety tO' have 
him defeated. As we intimated above, in the approaching election, not 
only the supremacy of the Democratic party in the executive department of 
our state government, but the political complexion of the next Legislature, 
and of the Virginia representation in both Houses of Congress are involved. 
Upon the next Legislature will devolve the duty of electing two United 
States Senators, in the place of Messrs. Mason and Hunter, whose terms 
will soon expire. We, therefore, regard the success of our county delega- 
tions, and of our candidates for Congress, and the consequent ascendancy of 
the Democracy of Virginia in both branches of the National Legislature, as 
of paramount importance. For it is evident already, that another great bat- 
tle must be fought on the floor of Congress, with the anti-Nebraska, Know- 
Nothing Fusionists of the North, who, 'tis said, have now a majority in the 
House of Representatives. We would entreat our friends, then, for the sake 
of the success of our county delegations, and of our faithful and sterling 
representative in Congress, Hon. Paulus Powell, if from no other considera- 
tion, to come up unitedly to the support of the nominees of the party, and 
present an unbroken phalanx, as in days past, to the common enemies of 
Democracy. 



39 



MK. WISE OPENS THE CANVASS-HIS ANTECEDENTS. 

The Hon. Henry A. Wise, after publishing a list of appointments, opened 
the canvass at Ashland Hall, Norfolk city, January the 5th, 1855, in the 
manner thus described by the Argus newspaper of that city : 

The campaign was commenced on Wednesday evening at Ashland Hall 
by our gallant and glorious nominee for Governor, in an address to a most 
crowded^audience. The room was filled to overflowing by the most eager 
listeners, whom the eloquence of his \ ords held strictly attentive for over 
two hours. The address was his own — such as he alone can deliver — forci- 
ble, well arranged, argumentative; abounding in the most bitter sarcasm 
and the most soothing appeals. It was one of his noblest efforts. Ot its 
effect, we can say, as our neighbor of the J\'ews, that "we can only judge 
by the strict order maintained, the earnest attention with which it was 
heard, and the frequent bursts of applause that followed his telling, sabre- 
like flashes of eloquence." His words "were as fire that ran," and thrilled 
the whole audience. 

He reviewed briefly and lucidly his opinions on those principles upheld 
by the Democratic party for government, both federal and state — the 
great fundamentals of all republican institutions, and the safety of our own 
glorious Union. He, in every way, surrounded himself by arguments and 
illustrations that were unanswerable ; and when he burst forth upon the 
principles that underlie the Know-Nothing question, he portrayed the real 
views of this secret organization; the fallacy of its positions; its proscrip- 
tion on account of religion ; and exposed fully the dangers that were to fol- 
low from the success of a secret political party. His views were such as 
to render conclusive to the mind of any man as to which side he should 
take in this new sect — that of openly expressing whatever touches on po- 
litical questions. It would be useless in us to attempt to give even a sy- 
nopsis of his speech. His manner is so original, his style so pecuharly his 
own, and the force of his remarks such, that in attempting to give them in 
synopsis by our own words, would be futile and weak. We may recur 
again to this subject. One must hear Mr. Wise for himself. With us it is 
as with Job — our language must be, " Whom I shall see [and hear] for 
myself, and not for another." 

As soon as Mr. Wise thus sounded the note of battle, the Know-Nothing 
and Whig press commenced an examination of his political antecedents. 
Their great effort was to prove that he had been an active Whig in the 
vigor of his life, had been an acknowledged and most distinguished leader 
of that organization, and that he now proclaimed that he had " no recan- 
tations to make." Never was the political history of any man so little under- 
stood by the masses as that of Henry A. Wise, during the late canvass in 
Virginia. We will here introduce Mr. Wise's own explanation as appeared 
in Uie Richmond Engidrer, April 14, 1843. This explanation is satisfactory 
to every unprejudiced mind, and did much to allay the prejudices of the 
"old line Democracy" against him: 



40 

MR. WISE IN 1843. 

To the Editor of the Enquh-er : 

NORTHUMBERLAKD, ApRIL 4, 1843. 

Dear Sir : — Yesterday was a great day in old N'orthumberland. Mr. Wise 
was here, and the high character he brought with him, acquired in Congress, 
and from the hustings, drew out an unusually large concourse of persons. 
I had often heard of his powers before the people ; but his efforts on this 
occasion exceeded my most extravagant calculations. He enchained the 
attention of his audience for about four hours, in a speech characterised for 
ability, eloquence, and the most withering sarcasm. He commenced by giv- 
ing us a history ( f his political career, begun about ten years ago in the 
Congress of the United States, and showed, conclusively, that so far as tfie 
great principles which at present agitate the country, the Bank, the Tariff, 
Internal Improvement, Distribution, and Abolition are concerned, he has not 
changed one jot or tittle. The evidence he adduced was irresistible. No 
candid and unprejudiced mind could have listened to him and not been con- 
vinced. He stated, (what I have no doubt was the fact,) that John Tyler 
was nominated at Harrisburg, because of his States Rights Republican 
Whig principles, and that there was in that Convention a union of National 
Republicans and States Rights Whigs, for a common object, (with the un- 
derstanding that the states rights doctrines were to be carried out, if they 
succeeded,) and that object, the defeat of Mr. Van Buren, to whose re-elec- 
tion Mr. Wise was then opposed — that this same republican portion of the 
Whig party was that fragment of the old Jackson party that had gone off under 
the white flag of '36 — that as soon would oil and water unite, as the principles 
of the old Hamiltonian federal party, and those of the republican states 
rights portion of the Whig party of 1840 — and that, upon their ascendancy 
to power, should they, (the federal portion of the Whig party of 1840,) at- 
tempt to carry out the federal doctrines, the states rights portion, who had 
no sympathy for them in principle, would rebel — and that the party common 
of 1840, must be dissolved into its original elements. This, Mr. Wise de- 
monstrated, as with a pencil of light, was the relative position of the repub- 
lican and federal wing of the great Whig army, when General Harrison 
came into power. In relation to his Hanover letter, to which allusion, in 
eome way by speech, sign, or manner, was made, he explicitly said, before 
he ever pledged his support in any form to Mr. Clay, he obtained a distinct 
avowal of his sentiments, and a pledge in regard to Jive cardinal points. 
Said he, "Mr. Clay, we differ widely upon fundamental principles, which 
must ever be a gulf between us, unless relinquished by you. How do you 
stand on the subject of a bank ? Virginia is opposed to one." " Why, my 
dear sir," replied Mr. Clay, " this is a subject, which, whatever may be my 
theoretical views, the public mind is not now ripe for, and T am perfectly 
"willing to leave it to 'the arbitrament of public opinion." " But, Mr. Clay, 
on the subject of the Tariff, you are looked upon as the father of this 
system, and you are so wedded to it, you could hardly be tempted to give it 
up. I am uncompromisingly opposed to it." "Why," said Mr. Clay, "all 
I wanted in the first instance, was to give a stimulus to the manufacturing 
interests of the country. That is already done. I am perfectly willing to 
abide by the compromise act — however much we differ upon the subject, 
theoretically, practically, we will be together." " But then, Mr. Clay, on the 
subject of internal improvement, how are you?" "Why, my dear sir, all 
I wished was to encourage a spirit of improvement among the states, and 
this has been carried already too far by the states themselves." " But on 
the subject of abolition of slavery in the District, Mr. Clay, you admit the 



41 

power of Congress to'act upon the subject, upon the principle of 'exclusive 
legislation,' " ° " My dear sir," rejoined ]Mr. Clay, "while these are my 
opinions conscientiously formed, I am a son of Virginia, and a slaveholder 
of Kentucky, and I would suffer the tortures of the inquisition, before I 
woukl sign a bill having for its object the abolition of slavery in the District, 
or in any manner give countenance to the subject," Now, by these pro- 
fessions and tests, how wide were Mr. Clay and Mr. Wise, prndicalhj apart? 
and had not Mr. Wise every reason to suppose that Mr. Clay, as a gentle- 
man, would literally fulfil these pledges ? Let those who are holding up 
this Hanover letter in judgment against Mr. Wise, take it in connection 
with these pledges of Mr. Clay, and Mr. Clay's own Hanover speech, and 
they are w^elcome to all the advantage they can derive. Mr. Wise admitted 
he had undergone more changes with respect to Mr. Clay, as a man, than 
he had ever done towards any one in his life — that he went to Congress the 
first time with strong prejudices and no very kind feelings towards him — 
that it was a long tim'^e bef'ore he had an introduction to him — and that when 
political co-operation brought them together, he felt the fascination and 
power of the charmer. Now, Mr. Wise says, for reasons which he assigned, 
and which are perfectly satisfactory to every unprejudiced and honest mind, 
he has no opinion of Henry Clay, either as a politician or as a ma?i. Ha 
has forfeited his respect forever as to both. 

But to return to the canvass of 1840, and the events which have suc- 
ceeded. In 1840, pending the contest of that memorable campaign, whilst 
Mr. Clay was looking forward to succeed General Harrison, and to be "the 
power behind the throne, greater than the throne itself," — in his administra- 
tion, he was the enthusiastic admirer of Mr. Wise, never meeting him after 
a separation, however short, but with the utmost cordiality and kindness. 
After the election, and Virginia had gone against General Harrison, what was 
his manner on meeting Mr. Wise in Washington ? Cordial as before? No, 
says Mr. Wise, but with the cold salutation :" " How do you do, sir ? I con- 
gratulate myself that Virginia has gone for Mr. Van Buren ; we will no 
longer be embarrassed by her peculiar opinions." Well may this expression 
hav-e struck Mr. Wise w'ith amazement. The cloven foot was shown — the 
policy of the Federal Whigs was developed by their leader. " No longer 
embarrassed by her peculiar opinions," by which he intended contempt and 
derision of " Virginia abstractions," or of a strict construction of our glori- 
ous Federal Constitution. From that hour, Mr. Wise's confidence was gone, 
and Avho could blame him for indulging feelings of indignation towards a 
man who had wormed himself artfully into his confidence, and when he had 
seen the Whig ticket triumph despite of the opposition of Virginia, turned 
his^ back" upon his pledges, and disregarded those courtesies and civilities 
which characterize the intercourse of mutual friends? With such a man, 
ambition is the vortex which swallows up every kind feeling of the human 
heart, and leaves scarcely a redeeming quality behind. An extra session 
of Congress was called, and, though Mr. Clay had agreed praciicalhj to go 
along with Mr. Wise, all those measures which had been renounced and 
o-iven up by Mr. Clay in 1840, were sought in hot haste, through his instru- 
mentality, to be palm"ed off upon the nation. The bank question, which was 
to be left to the enlightenment of public opinion, was snatched from the 
people — a rivalry was begot between Mr. Clay and Mr. Webster, in conse- 
quence of General Harrison's preference for the latter ; and ere the old chief 
had been killed by the annoyance of hungry office-seekers, (the Simon Pures 
of 1840,) and the course of political aspirants for the presidency, Mr. Clay 
secretly aimed at his admmistration the artillery of war. All this Mr. Wise 
proved, and proved satisfactorily. The compromise act was violated, and an 



42 

odious bankrupt law passed, contrary to every pledge Mr. Clay had made 
Mr. Wise. 

Mr. Wise, in the course of his address, triumphantly vindicated John 
Tyler against the charges of treachery, Lscariotism, Arnoldism, immorality, 
fraud, dishonesty, and the thousand and one coarse and malicious epithets 
which have been heaped upon him by Federal Whiggery, without stint and 
without measure. He proved, beyond the possibility of a doubt, that Mr. Tyler 
had always been opposed to the constitutionalit}^ of a bank, and that he could 
not have signed a charter without peijury — that there was no evidence to show 
that even General Harrison would have signed a bank charter; and he quoted 
the letter of the General in '22, wherein he states, the Bank of the United 
States is unconstitutional, it not being necessary to carry out an expressly 
granted power, and that had he the power, he Avould issue ^ fieri facias, and 
revoke the charter — and, also, the Whig address in Richmond in 1840, 
wherein it is claimed for General Harrison, that he is as much opposed to 
the United States Bank as any man could be, and far sounder upon that sub- 
ject than Mr. Van Buren. Mr. Wise said he advised freely with Mr. Tyler 
upon the subject of a bank — that he differed from him as to its constitution- 
ality, but, at the same time, urged him to take that course which his con- 
science dictated, without regard to whom it might offend or whom please — 
that if he could do so, as did Mr. Madison, according to the principle of 
stare decisis, to do so, but to take care and sign only a full-blooded animal, 
no mongrel — only such as would confer most benefit upon the country — but 
to take his own course in the matter, and not to compromit by his advice, his 
character, his conscience or his honor. Mr. Wise said he had frequently 
witnessed the agony of that man upon this very question, and had seen him 
almost sweat drops of blood, and wished that he could have been in his place, 
as he believed he had the nerve to look down with scorn and contempt upon 
his revilers and slanderers, and those reptiles whose business it is to assail 
private character to subserve party and ambitious ends. Mr. Wise farther 
said, they had tried every way they could to entrap John Tyler, and that the 
very bill prepared by Mr. Clay himself contained the same objectionable 
feature as that of Mr. Ewing, which Mr. Clay had contemptuously denomi- 
nated "a rickety concern" — that any bill John Tyler could have framed, or 
any friend of Mr. Webster, would have met his unqualified condemnation — 
that he wanted the credit himself of preparing the bill, and getting through 
Congress all the Whig measures, that he might retire to Ashland upon the 
dignity of these measures, become the idol of the Whig party, and the can- 
didate for the succession. Mr. Wise, in defining his position upon the bank 
question, said, though he differed from Mr. Tyler, and knew he differed in 
1840, he had merged that into questions which he considered of far srreater 
magnitude. Though he believed a United States Bank constitutional, the 
time had passed for chartering onr. The first effect of a bank, he contended, 
was depletive, and he cited in proof the history of the country from 1816 to 
1825. He assimilated the condition of the country now to a patient who 
was already prostrate from the loss of blood, and asked if, in this state of 
things, a physician would be found so rash and foolish as to think of taking 
more blood, and thereby sink the powers of the system beyond the point of 
reaction. He said the fate of the United States Bank and the Bank of Penn- 
sylvania, which was but a continuation of it; the cries of orphans and 
widows who had been reduced to penury and want hy its explosion ; and the 
fact that Nicholas Biddle, with all his financial knowledge, once standing 
high in public estimation, had failed to make it a benefit, and himself become 
a bankrupt in character and person, all admonished us that no such institu- 
tion could ever again find favor with the people of the United States. 



43 

IMr. Wise'showed, and showed from the record, the Whig address of 1840, 
that if all deserters are to be shot, Mr. Tyler and himself should not be 
selected as the victims, but those who put forth their princij)les in 1840, and 
have since abandoned them; and humorously said, that if such were the 
sentence, and the words "take aim, fire" to be given, you would see no little 
dipping and doging in the crowd, among the old Hamiltonian National Repub- 
lican Federalists, who had long cherished and often lauded the doctrines of 
Hamilton, Pickering and Adams to the stars. He also satisfied all who heard 
him, that in regard to the Ciiley duel, the mountain of odium, which he had 
borne, should properly have rested upon the shoulders of another. He said 
that it was a fair duel — but that if censure and odium attached to any one, it 
should be to Henry Clay, for he was the counseller and adviser, and dictated 
the terms of the duel — that he (Mr. W.) protested against the rifle and the 
language of the challenge, which closed the door to an adjustment of the 
ditliculty, but was overruled by Mr. Clay — that he expressed an unwilling- 
ness to be the bearer of a challenge so uncompromising in its character, but 
at length yielded to appeal from Mr. Graves, who reminded him that he had 
been his friend on a similar occasion. 

The development of these facts was made by him, because, when his 
character was assailed, and assailed unjustly, as Mr. Clay knew, Mr. Wise 
appealed to him to do him justice, and put this matter right before the nation, 
Mr. Clay avoided all opportunity to do so, and no alternative was left Mr. 
Wise but to suffer the odium, or else give the facts to the public. 

Mr. Wise, in conclusion, said his private vote was his own, and he should 
tell no one how or for whom it should be given in the coming presidential 
election. But he would not hesitate to say for whom it should not be given: 
that he could never vote for Henry Clay, as constable, or anything else. He 
said he believed, to the fullest extent, 'in the right of the people to instruct 
their representatives ; and if the election went before Congress, and his dis- 
trict had voted for Mr. Clay, he should deposit his vote for him. Mr. Wise, 
upon the whole, made a most favorable impression. As a Virginian, I feel 
proud of him, and do applaud him for the gallant manner in which he has 
stood by Mr. Tyler, Virginia's own son, in one of the most trying positions 
in which man was ever placed, when slander with her thousand tongues was 
at work, and everything done by a reckless party to destroy the fair fame of 
an honest and upright man. 



THE ISSUES OF THE CANVASS. 

Know-Nothingism was introduced in Virginia under the specious guise of 
a great conservative organization ; knowing no North, no South, no East, no 
West; repudiating all sectionalism, and utterly discarding old party lines 
and old party issues. It professed to be national, republican, and constitu- 
tional in all its tenets and intentions. In the month of December, 1854, the 
Richmond Whig denied in the most emphatic terms, that the Know-Nothing 
party would supercede the old Whig party, counselled against the abandon- 
ment of a single Whig tenet ; but advised, nevertheless, a fusion with Know- 
Nothingism in a common effort to "expel the Goths and Vandals," who had 
so long ruled and plundered the state. Whig orators, Whig editors. Whig 
letter-writers and Whig politicians took up the role thus assigned them, de- 
claring that the Know-Nothing organization was no Whig trick, but a great 



44 

party of reform, embracing alike Democrats and Whigs. Rather than sub- 
mit to the victorious Democracy, the Whig and its party preferred to foster, 
encourage, uphold and advance a Northernism untried upon Southern soil. 
Thus were presented to the Democracy the old issues of Federalism, coupled 
with religious intolerance and proscription of foreigners. The Enquirer 
published the following commentary upon the issues of the canvass, January 
8th, 1854: 

The Whig Flag in the Dust — Amalgamation with the Know- 
NoTHiNGs. — When, in its issue of the 25th December, the Richmond Whig 
scornfully repelled the suggestion that the Whig party of Virginia should 
abandon their organization and submit to the sway of Know-Nothingism, we 
did not suspect the sincerity of its purpose, nor mistrust the strength of its 
resolution. Nor for one moment did we entertain the thought that the Whig 
could be driven from its manly position by the threats of the American Or- 
gan, and be forced to accept, with expressions of satisfaction, the very over- 
ture which it had just rejected with an air of insulted dignity. 

From an article in the Whig of Wednesday, which proposes to indicate 
the present policy of its party, we select the following extract : 

" We remark, then, that our first impressions were in favor of holding a 
Whig State Convention. But subsequent reflection, and an impartial survey 
of the whole field, and a calm review of all the circumstances by which we 
are surrounded, have conducted us to an opposite conclusion. The Whig 
party, at the last trial of strength, was in a large minority in the state, and 
Avhile we believe that we might, and probably would succeed alone, consid- 
ering the elements that might perhaps combine in our favor, yet it is better 
and safer, in our opinion, not to rely too confidently upon our own unaided 
strength, but to so act as to gather to our side, men of all parties and per- 
suasions who are sick of misrule and wish for reform. We counsel not the 
abandonment of a single Whig tenet, but only urge a course which will, 
first, effectually expel the Goths and Vandals, and ultimately, probably im- 
mediately, result in putting Whig measures and Whig policy in the ascend- 
ant. We, therefore, respectfully and kindly suggest to such of our friends 
as entertain a wish for a convention, to abandon it at once — at least for the 
present. If unforeseen circumstances should hereafter arise to render one 
necessary, March or April will be early enough to consider the matter." 

The contrast between the spirit of its former declaration, and the temper 
of this paragraph, is suthcientiy striking to convict the Whig of a very fla- 
grant inconsistency. But, it is not to this point that we wish to direct the 
attention of the public. The article in the Whig is not cited for any purpose 
of controversy, but to exhibit the policy of its party in this important crisis of 
public affairs. We have here the distinct avowal of its recognised organ 
that the Whig party of Virginia no longer exists as an independent organiza- 
tion, but is disbanded and merged into Know-Nothingism. And we have 
moreover the declaration, that the motive of this extraordinary proceeding 
springs from no higher impulse than an appetite for the spoils of office. 

We are reluctant to believe that the VVhig party of Virginia will submis- 
sively adopt the advice of their organ. The opinion we entertain of their 
character forbids the inference that they will consent to desert the flag under 
which they have fought so long and so gallantly, and transfer their principles 
and their allegiance to the up-start order of Know-Nothings. We may be 
deceived, but we will not admit the possibility of an absolute and ignomin- 
ious submission of the Whigs of Virginia to the insolent dictation of the 
Know-Nothings, until the surrender is ratified by the party. The leaders we 
know are too often ready to adopt any expedient that may gratify their lust of 



45 

power, but the honest masses of the Whig party are exempt from tlic influ- 
ence of any such motive, and, if we be not mistaken, they will indignantly 
refuse to play the menial and the lackey to a secret and suspected cabal of 
bigots and demagogues. 

The Whig, anticipating certain success from the coalition with the Know- 
Nothings, exultingly predicts the speedy ascendancy of Whig measures and 
Whig policy. If any well-meaning Deinocrat has been misled by the deceit- 
ful promises of Know-Nothingism, this declaration will startle him from his 
delusion, for it is equivalent to an avowal that the Know-Nothing organization 
is but a contrivance for the restoration of the Whig party to power. 

The article from the Whig is suggestive of much instructive reflection to 
the people of Virginia, and we propose to resume its consideration to-mor- 
row. Meanwhile, let it be borne in mind that the Richmond Whig recom- 
mends a fusion of Whigs and Know-Nothings, for the purpose of effecting 
an immediate restoration of Whig measures and Whig policy in the govern- 
ment of Virginia. 

" We counsel not the abandonment of a single Whig tenet, but only urge 
a course which will first effectually expel the Goths and Vandals, and ulti- 
mately, probably immediately, result in putting Whig measures and Whig 
policy in the ascendant." — [Richmond W/iig, Jan. 3. 

In the beginning, the Know-Nothing organization was represented as a 
protest of the people against the selfishness and corruption of politicians, and 
its ostensible aim was the reform of abuse and the rescue of the government 
from the despotism of party. Under this specious pretence, Know-JVothing- 
ism was introduced into Virginia, with a pledge from its advocates of equal 
antagonism to the Whig and Democratic parties. Its deceitful promise of 
neutrality and reform, seduced some Democrats from their party, and im- 
jDarted strength and impulse to the organization. 

We never mistook the character and tendency of Know-Nothingism. 
From the start, we denounced it as an imposture. We detected the falsity 
of its pretensions, and exposed the hidden purpose of its authors. We 
affirmed that it was at bottom a political movement, and foretold that if not 
aaTested it would result in the overthrow of the Democratic party. 

Our suspicions were justified, and our prediction fulfilled, in the progress 
of events. The political aim and party affinity of Know-Nothingism were 
soon developed in its successes. Every Know-Nothing triumph was 
achieved in alliance with the Whig party, and was in effect a Democratic 
defeat. 

Still the organs of Know-Nothingism protested its independence of party,, 
and persisted in the endeavor to seduce Democrats into its embrace. 

At last an alliance between the Whig party in Virginia and the Know- 
Nothings, has been concluded, and although its conditions have not been 
communicated to the \Vorld, an organ of one of the high contracting parties 
has very distinctly foreshadowed its effect. The prodigious boasting of the 
British journals, after the accession of Austria to the alliance of the Western 
Powers, is eclipsed by the excessive exultation of the Richmond Whig over 
tlie league between the Know-Nothings and the Whig party in Virginia. It will 
result, exclaims the Whig, in an ecstacy of enthusiam, "in the expulsion of 
the Goths and Vandals" — that is, the Democrats — from power, and "in the 
ultimate, if not immediate ascendancy of Whig measures and Whig policy." 
We thank the Whig for this candid avowal, and we trust that its simplicity 
and nnivete will not be corrupted by the associations into which it will be 
thrown by its alliance with the Know-Nothings. 

If the deceptive pretences of Know-Nothingism have seduced any honest 
Democrat into the order, he will make haste and come out of it, after learn- 



46 

ing that he is aiding in the ascendancy of Whig measures and Whig policy. 
It' any Democrat who has not yet foresworn allegiance to his party, imagines that 
there is nothing in the character or probable issue of the present canvass, to 
incite him to the zealous support of Wise, he will learn, from the declara- 
tion of the Richmond Whig, that the defeat of Wise will result in the expul- 
sion of the Goths and Vandals, and the ascendancy of Whig measures and 
Whig policy ; and learning this, he W'ill repress every feeling of disappoint- 
ment and disaffection, and exhibiting the disinterested devotion of a patriot, 
will throw himself with all his soul and all his might into a struggle on 
which depends the triumph or defeat of his party and his principles. The 
coalition is not animated by an impulse of personal hostility to Henry A. 
Wise, nor is its object limited to his defeat. It makes war upon him as 
the champion of the Democratic party, and it con-templates nothing less than 
the expulsion of the Goths and Vandals, and the ascendancy of Whig 
measures and Whig policy. The pretence of neutrality and independence 
of party, by which Know-Nothingism seeks to allure recruits to its standard, 
is a deception and a snare, and the aim of the organization is the ascendancy 
of Whig measures and Whig policy. 

Again we thank the Whig for its manly, out-spoken candor. Disdaining 
to practice a deception on the people, the Whig frankly avows what it ex- 
pects to accomplish by its alliance with the Know-Nothings. Let no man 
reproach it with indiscretion ; it saw the advahtage of secrecy and dissimu- 
lation, but chose rather than compromise its character, to apprise the Demo- 
cracy of the aim of the coalition, and to admonish them of the necessity of 
vigilance and etfort in defence of their principles. 



THE KNOW-NOTHING EITUAL EXPOSED. 

The Know-Nothing party or organization was the first political party in the 
history of this government that undertook to follow the example of the Ja- 
cobin clubs of France. This Know-Nothing part}'^ was one of the deepest 
and most skillfully panned, and most dangerous political movements that was 
ever concocted in any country. There were many true patriots that were 
deluded into the organization, some of whom had, and many of whom had 
not the courage to withdraw ; but we trust we shall be pardoned for express- 
ing the decided conviction that the leaders of the order should have their 
names classed in history with those of Burr and Arnold. This new party 
had a regularly prescribed ritual, to which every man who became a mem- 
ber had to conform. This ritual was composed of oaths, pass-words, signs, 
and ceremonies of initiation. Many who went through these ceremonies 
were offended with their puerility, and it is not surprising that some few, 
shocked at the incendiarism thus inculcated should, from a patriotic con- 
viction of duty, have resolved to lay them before their countrymen. We 
here introduce the ritual in full, as published in the various Democratic pa- 
pers of the state ; the authenticity of which was repeatedly acknowledged 
by members of the order. Mr. Wise was the first Democrat in the state 
that came in possession of the ritual. It was first exposed in the state of 
Illinois, and as soon as Governor Lybrook procured the ritual he endorsed 
it to Mr. Wise. Through Mr. Wise it was published simultaneously in the 



47 

Richmond Enquirer and Examiner, then copied by Democratic papers 
throughout the state. After the conclusion of the canvass, Mr. Wise en- 
closed it to the sender. Governor Lybrook. The Demecracy of Virginia re- 
turn to (iovernor Lybrook their sincere thanks for his efficient and timely 
service so considerately rendered to our gallant standard bearer. 

The Know-Nothing Ritual or "Constitution op the Grand Coun- 
cil OF the United States of North America — Adopted unani- 
mously, June 17, 1854 — the Anniversary of the Battle of Bun- 
ker Hill." 

article i. 
This organization shall be known by the name and title of The G?'and 

Council of the United States of JS'orth America, and its jurisdiction and 

power shall extend to all the states, districts, and territories of the United 

States of North America. 

ARTICLE II. 

A person to become a member of any subordinate council must be twenty- 
one years of age; he must believe in the existence of a Supreme Being as 
the Creator and Preserver of the Universe ; he must be a native born citi- 
zen ; a Protestant, born of Protestant parents, reared under Protestant in- 
fluence, and not united in marriage with a Roman Catholic; Provided, nev- 
ertheless, that in this last respect, the state, district, or territorial council 
shall be authorized to so construct their respective constitutions as shall best 
promote the interest of the American cause in their several jurisdictions; 
And provided, moreover, that no member who may have a Roman Catholic 
wife shall be eligible to any office in this order. 

ARTICLE HI. 

Sec. 1. The object of this organization shall be to resist the insidious 
policy of the Church of Rome, and other foreign influence against the in- 
stitutions of our country by placing in all offices in the gift of the people, or 
by appointment, none but native born Protestant citizens. 

Sec. "2. The Grand Council shall hold its annual meeting on the first 
Tuesday in the month of June, at such place as shall be designated by the 
Grand Council at the previous annual meeting, and it may adjourn from 
time to time. Special meetings shall be called by the President on the 
written request of five delegations representing five State Councils; Provi- 
ded, that sixty days' notice shall be given to the State Councils previous to 
said meeting. 

Sec 3. The Grand Council shall be composed of thirteen delegates, 
from each state, to be chosen by the State Councils ; and each district, or 
territory where a District or Territorial Council shall exist, shall be entitled 
to send five delegates, to be chosen from said Councils ; and when no Dis- 
trict or Territorial Council shall exist, such district or territory shall be en- 
titled to send five delegates, if five or more Subordinate Councils shall exist 
in such district or territory; Provided, that in the nomination of candidates 
for President and Vice President of the United States, each state shall be 
entitled to the same number of votes as they shall have members in both 
houses of Congress. In all sessions of the Grand Council, thirty-two dele- 
gates, representing tiiirteen states, territories, or districts, shall constitute a 
quorum for the transaction of business. 

Sec. 4. The Grand Council shall be vested with the following powers 
and privileges : 

It shall be the head of the organization for the United States of North 



48 

America, and shall fix and establish all signs, grips, pass-words, and such 
other secret work as may seem to it necessary. 

It shall have power to decide upon all matters appertaining to national 
politics. 

It shall have the power to exact fiom the State Councils quarterly or an- 
nual statements as to the number] of members under their jurisdictions, and 
in relation to all other matters necessary for its information. 

It shall have the power to form state, territorial or district councils, and to 
grant dispensations for the formation of such bodies when five subordinate 
councils shall have been put in operation in any state, territory or district, 
and application made. 

It shall have the power to determine upon a mode of punishment in case 
of any dereliction of duty on the part of its members or officers. 

It shall have the power to adopt cabalistic characters for the purpose of writ- 
ing or telegraphing — said characters to be communicated to the presidents of 
the State Councils, and by them to the presidents of the Subordinate Coun- 
cils. 

It shall have the power to adopt any and every measure it may deem neces- 
sary to secure the success of the organization ; provided, that nothing shall 
be done by the said Grand Council in violation of the Constitution ; and pro- 
vided, further, that in all political matters, its members may be instructed by 
the State Councils, and if so instructed, shall carry out such instructions of 
the State Councils which they represent until overruled by a majority of the 
Grand Council. 

ARTICLE IV. 

The president shall always preside over the Grand Council Avhen present, 
and in his absence the vice president shall preside, and in the absence of 
both, the Grand Council shall appoint a president pro lempore ; and the pre- 
siding officer may at all times call a member to the chair, but such appoint- 
ment shall not extend beyond one session of the Grand Council. 

ARTICLE V. 

Sec. 1. The officers of the Grand Council shall be a president, vice presi- 
dent, corresponding secretary, recording secretary, treasurer, two sentinels 
and such other officers as as tlie Grand Council may see fit to appoint from 
time to time, and the secretaries and sentinels may receive such compensa- 
tions as the Grand Council shall determine. 

Sec. 2. The duties of the several officers created by this Constitution shall 
be such as the work of this organization prescribes. 

article VI. 

Sec. 1. All officers provided for by this Constitution, except the sentinels, 
shall be elected annually by ballot. The president may appoint sentinels 
from time to time, or otherwise. 

Sec. 2. A majority of all the votes cast shall be requisite to an election to 
any office. 

Sec. 3. All officers and delegates must be full degree members of this 
organization. 

Sec. 4. All vacancies in the elective offices shall be filled by a vote of the 
Grand Council, and only for the unexpired term of the said vacancy. 

article VII. 

Sec. 1. The Grand Council shall entertain and decide all cases of appeal, 
and it shall establish a form of appeal. 

Sec. 2. The Grand Council shall levy a tax upon the State, District or 
Territorial Councils, for the support of the Grand Council, to be paid in such 
manner and at such times as the Grand Council shall determine. 

ARTICLE VIII. 

The Grand Council may alter or amend this Constitution, at any regular 



49 

annual meeting, by a two-thirds' vote of the members present; provided 
such amendment shall be adopted by a two-lhirds' vote of the Grand Coun- 
cil at its next succeeding annual meeting. 

On page 11 commences the "General Rules and Regulations," which 
occupy pages, 11, 12 and 13, and are as follows: 

GENERAL RULES AND REGULATIONS. 

Rule One. — Each state, district or territory in which there may exist 
five or more Subordinate Councils working under dispensations from the 
Grand Council of tiie United States of North America, or under regular dis- 
pensations from some itate, district or territory, are duly empowered to 
establish themselves into a State, District or Territorial Council, and when so 
established, to form for themselves constitutions and by-laws for their gov- 
ernment, in pursuance of and in consonance with the Constitution of the 
Grand Council of the United States ; provided, however, that all district or 
territorial constitutions shall be subject to the approval of the Grand Council 
of the United States. 

Rule Two. — All State, District or Territorial Councils, v.'hen established, 
shall have full power and authority to establish all Subordinate Councils 
within their i-espective limits ; and the constitutions and by-laws of all such 
Subordinate Councils must be approved by their respective State, District or 
Territorial Councils. 

Rule Three. — All State, District or Territorial Councils, when estab- 
lished and until the formation of constitutions, shall work under the Consti- 
tution of the Grand Council of the United States. 

Rule Four. — In all cases where, for the convenience of the organization, 
two State or Territorial Councils may be established, the two councils together 
shall be entitled to but tliirteen delegates in the Grand Council of the United' 
States — the proportioned number of delegates to depend on the number of 
members in the organization ; provided, that no state shall be allowed to 
have more than one State Council without the consent of the Grand Council 
of the United States. 

Rule Five. — In any state, district or territory, where there may be more 
than one organization working on the same basis (to wit: '•Lodges" and 
" Councils,") the same shall be required to combine; the officers of each 
organization shall resign, and new officers be elected ; and thereafter these 
bodies shall be known as State Councils and Subordinate Councils ; and nevr 
charters shall be granted to them by the Grand Council. 

Rule Six. — It shall be considered a penal offence for any brother not an 
officer of a Subordinate Council, to make use of the sign or summons adopted 
for public notification, except by direction of the president ; or for the officers 
of a council to post the same at any other time than from midnight to one 
hour before daybreak ; and this rule shall be incorporated into the by-laws of 
the State, District and Territorial Councils. 

Rule Seven. — The determination of the necessity and mode of issuing 
the posters for public notification shall be entrusted to the judgment of the 
State. District or Territorial Councils. 

Rule Eight. — The respective State, District or Territorial Councils shall 
be required to make statements of the number of membei-s within their 
respective limits at the next annual meeting of the Grand Council, and 
annually thereafter at the regular annual meeting. 

Rule Nine. — The Grand Council of the LTnited States shall pay from it9 
treasury the necessary expenses of its members in attendance upon its ses- 
sions. 

Rule Ten. — Each State, District or Territorial Council shall be taxed ten 
dollars per annum for each Subordinate Council under its jurisdiction, said 
4 



50 

tax to be paid in semi-annual instalments of five dollars each, payable in the 
months of June and December. 

Rule Eleven. — The following shall be the key to determine and ascer- 
tain the purport of any communication that may be addressed to the presi- 
dent of a State, District or Territorial Council by the president of the Grand 
Council, who is hereby instructed to communicate a knowledge of the same 
to said otficers : 



Rule Tw^elve. — The clause of the article of the constitution relative to 
belief in the Supreme being is obligatory upon every State and Subordinate 
Council, as well as upon each individual member. 

Pages 15 and 16 treat of " Special Votes," viz: 

SPECIAL VOTES. 

First. — This Grand Council hereby grants to the state of Virginia two 
State Councils — the one to be located in Eastern and the other in Western 
Virginia, the Blue Ridge mountains being the geographical line between the 
two jurisdictions. 

Second. — The president shall have power, till the next session of the 
Grand Council, to grant dispensations for the formation of State, District or 
Territorial Councils, in form most agreeable to his own discretion, upon appli- 
cation being made. 

Thjrd. — The delegates from the several states, districts or territories, who 
were elected for, or in attendance upon, this Grand Council, shall hold their 
seats for one year ; and the State, District or Territorial Councils are hereby 
authorized to fill up their respective delegations ; provided, that when there 
are two or more organizations in any one state, district or territory, the dele- 
gation shall be chosen after the union, as provided for by the Constitution of 
this Grand Council. 

Fourth. — The next meeting of the Grand Council shall be holden at 
Cincinnati on the third Wednesday of November, 1854, at 3 o'clock, P. M. 

Fifth. — Messrs. D , of New Jersey, D and S , 

of Massachusetts, are appointed a committee to examine, revise, correct, 
and prepare for publication, the constitution, general rules and regulations, 
and special votes of the Grand Council, with a list of the ofhcers and mem- 
bers, with their autograph address in full, and the states, districts or terri- 
tories they represent, and such other necessary matters as may be deemed 
expedient and judicious to publish, and forward the same to the printer; 
when issued, to the number of five hundred, a copy to be sent to each mem- 
ber of this Grand Council, and the residue to be placed at the disposal of 
the president. 

RITUAL. 

FIRST DEGREE COUNCIL. OUTSIDE. 

Marshal. — Gentlemen: Are you candidates for admission to this organiza- 
tion? [Each answers, "I am."] 

Marshal. — Before proceeding further it is necessary that you take an obli- 
gation of secrecy. 

Are you willing to take such an obligation ? [" I am."] 

Marshal. — You will now place yourselves in a position to receive it. [Po- 
sifioii. — Place the right hand on the Holy Bible and Cross.] 

Obligaiion. — You do solemnly swear* upon this Holy Bible and Cross, 

*In cases where candidates are known to be conscientious about taking an oath, <hey 
may be allowed to make solemn affirmation — this provision to be understood as applying 
whenever necessary in either obligation. 



51 

before Almighty God and these witnesses, that you will not divulge any 
question now proposed to you, whether you become a member of tiii.s organ- 
ization or not, and that you will never, under any circumstances, mention 
the name of any person or persons you see present, nor that you know such 
an organization to be in existence, and that you will true answers make to 
every question asked you to the best of your knowledge and belief; so help 
you God. ["I do."] 

First Question. — Are you twenty-one years of age? ["I am. "J 

Second Question. — Do you believe in the existence of a Supreme Being, 
the Creator and Preserver of the Universe, and that an obligation at this 
time taken will be binding upon 3^ou through life? ["I do."] 

Third Questiofi. — Were you born within the limits or under the jurisdic- 
tion of the United States of America? ["I was."] 

Fourth Questio7i. — In religious belief are you a Roman Chatholic ? 
["No."] 

Fifth Question. — Have you or have you not been reared under Protestant 
influence ? [ " Yes," or " No."] 

Sixth Question. — Are, or were, either of your parents Roman Catholic in 
religious belief ? ["No."] 

Seventh Question. — If married, is your wife a Roman Catholic? ["No," 
or "Yes," — the answer to be valued as the Constitution of the State Council 
provide.] 

Eighth Question. — Are you willing to use your influence and vote only 
for native born American citizens for all the offices of honor or trust in the 
gift of the people, to the exclusion of all foreigners and aliens, and of Roman 
Catholics in particular, and without regard to party predilections ? ["I am."] 

INSIDE. 

Marsha/. — Worth}' President: I have examined these candidates, and 
finding them duly qualified, present them for obligation. \_If the examination 
in the ante-room gave evidence of even partial objection to any candidate the 
Marshal should state it to the President, before introducing the candidates.'] 

President. — My friends : Previous to your uniting with and becoming 
members of this organization, it will be necessary for you to take upon your- 
selves a solemn obligation — one which we have all taken and intend sacredly 
to keep through life. It will not conflict with the duties you owe to your- 
selves, your families, your country, or your God. With this assurance are 
you still willing to proceed? [Each answers, "I am."] 

Obligation. — You and each of you, of your own free will and accord, in 
the presence of Almighty God and these witnesses, your right hand resting 
on this Holy Bible and Cross, and your left hand raised towards Heaven, 
(ox if it be preferred, your left hand resting on your breast and your right 
hand raised towards Heaven.) in token of your sincerity, do solemnly 
promise and swear* that you will not make known to any person or persons 
any of the signs, secrets, mystei;ies, or objects of this organization, unless 
it be to those wliom, after due examination, or lawful information, you 
shall find to be members of this organization in good standing; that vou will 
not cut, carve, pruit, pamt, stamp, stain, or in any way, directly or indi- 
rectly, expose any of the secrets or objects of this order, nor suffer it to be 
done by others, if in your power to prevent it, unless it be for official in- 
struction ; that so long as you are connected with this organization, if not 
regularly dismissed from it, you will, in all things, political or social, so far 
as this order is concerned, comply with the will of the majority, when ex- 
pressed in a lawful manner, though it may conflict with your personal 

* See prior note relative to affirmation. 



52 

preference, so long as it does not conflict with the Grand, State or Subordi- 
nate Constitutions, the Constitution of the United States of America, or that 
of the State in which you reside ; and that you will not, under any circum- 
stances whatever, knowingly, recommend an unworthy person for initiation, 
nor suffer it to be done, if in your power to prevent it. You furthermore prom- 
ise and declare that you will not vote, nor give your influence for any man 
for any office in the gift of the people, unless he be an American born citizen, 
in favor of Americans born ruling America, nor if he be a Roman Catholic, 
and that you will not, under any circumstances, expose the name of any 
member of this order, nor reveal the existence of such an organization. To 
all the foregoing you bind yourselves, under the no less penalty than that of 
being expelled from this order, and of having your name posted and circula- 
ted throughout all the different councils of the United States as a perjurer 
and as a traitor to God and your country, as a being unfit to be employed and 
trusted, countenanced or supported in any business transaction, as a person 
unworthy the confidence of all good men, and as one at whom the finger 
of scorn should ever be pointed. So help you God ! [Each answers 
"I do."] 

President. — Worthy Marshal: You will now present these brothers to the 
Secretary that he may record their names and residences ; which being done, 
you will present them to the Instructor for final instruction. 

Marshal. — Worthy Instructor: By direction of the Worthy President, I 
present to you these brothers for final instructions, they having signed the 
constitution. 

Instructor. — Brothers: At the outer door you will make any ordinary 
alarm. When the wicket is opened, you will ask what is the pass ? The 
outside sentinel will reply, give it — when you will give the term pass, and 
be admitted to the ante-room. You will then proceed to the inner door and 
give one rap. When the wicket is opened, give your name, the number of 
your council, the explanation of the term-pass, and the degree pass-word. 
If these be found correct, on being reported to the vice-president you will 
be admitted to the council. You will then proceed to the centre of the room, 
and address the president with the countersign, which is performed thus — 
\Posilion — the ri^ht hand placed on the heart and quickly withdrawn, the 
person remaining perfectly erect.] When this salutation is recognised, you 
■will turn to the vice-president and address him in the same manner, who will 
also reply. You will then quietly take your seat. This sign is peculiar to 
this degree, and is never to be used outside of the council room. When 
retiring, you will address the officers in the same manner, and also give the 
degree pass-word to the inside sentinel. 

The term pass-word is , \_t/ie word to he established by each state 

touncil for its respective Subordinates.] The explanation of the term pass, to 

be used at the inner door, is , [to be established by each state, «S*c.] 

The degree pass-word is twenty-one. The traveling pass-ivord and explana- 
iion, (which is changed annually by the grand president, and which is used 
only when the brother is traveling beyond the jurisdiction of his own state, 
district or territory,) is Yorktown — the place of final victory. 

The sign of recognition is by placing the index finger of the right hand in 
the space between the buttons of the coat, vest or skirt, and elevating the 
thumb. The answer is given by placing the thumb of the right hand in the 
same place. 

The grip is given in the form of a lady's slight shake of the hand, by 
bringing the three fingers of the light hand into such a po.-ition as to bring 
the thumb slightly upon the nail of the middle finger, dropping the hand im- 
mediately, when the following conversation ensues — the challenging party 



53 

first saying what time ? The answer, time for work. Then the response — 
are you, followed by the rejoinder, we are. 

Public notice for mass meetings is given by means of a right angle triangu- 
lar piece of paper, [a diagram is here given,] white in color. Jf informa- 
tion is wanted of the object of the gathering, or of the place, &c., the inquirer 
will ask of an undoubted brother only, have you seen SAM to-day? The 

reply will be go to , at o'clock. A piece of paper of the 

same shape, red in color, will signify suspected danger. If the color is red, 
with an equilateral triangular piece cut out, thus : [a diagram is here given] 
it will denote actual trouble, which requires that you come prepared to meet 
it. 

Brothers, you are now initiated into and made acquainted with the work 
and organization of a council of this degree of the order; and here, upon 
the threshold of our institution, with the remembrance of your solemn obli- 
gation fresh upon us all, we extend to you the welcome and the sympathies 
of honest and patriotic hearts. In becoming members of this order, we do 
not compel you to act with us against your ijetter judgment; and should you 
at any time wish to withdraw, from conscientious scruples, it will be our 
duty to grant you a dismission in good faith. 

It has no doubt been long apparent to you, brothers, that foreign influence 
and Roman Catholicism have been making steady and alarming progress in 
our country. You cannot have failed to observe the significant transition of 
the foreign born and Romanist from a character quiet, retiring and even 
abject, to one bold, threatening, turbulent, and even despotic in its appear- 
ance and assumptions. You must have become alarmed at the systematic 
and rapidly augmenting power of these dangerous and unnatural elements of 
our national condition. So it is, brothers, with others besides yourselves, in 
every state of the Union. A sense of danger has struck the great heart of 
the nation. In every city, town and hamlet the danger has been seen and 
the alarm sounded. And hence true men have devised this order as a means 
of disseminating patriotic principles, of keeping alive the fire of national 
virtue, of fostering the national intelligence, and of advancing America and the 
American interest on the one side, and on the other of checking the stride 
of the foreigner or alien, of thwarting the machinations and subverting the 
deadly plans of the Jesuit and Papist. 

SECOND DEGREE COUNCIL. 

Marshal. — Worthy President : These brothers having been duly elected 
to the 2d degree of this order, I present them before you for obligation. 

President.- — Brothers : You will place your left hand upon your right 
breast, and extend your right hand towards the flag of our country prepara- 
tory to obligation. [Each Coimcil room should have a neat American jlag 
festooned over the platform of the President.^^ 

Obligation. — You, and each of you, of your own free will and accord, in 
the presence of Almighty God and these witnesses, your left hand resting on 
vour right breast, and your right hand extended to the flag of your country, 
do most solemnly and sincerely swear that you will not, under any circum- 
stances, disclose in any manner, nor suffer it to be done by others if in your 
power to prevent it, the name, signs, pass-words, or other secrets of this de- 
gree ; that you will in all things conform to all the rules and regulations of 
this order, and to the Constitution and By-Laws of this or any other Council 
to which you may be attached, so long as they do not conflict with the Con- 
stitution of the United States, nor that of the state in which you reside ; that 
you will, under all circumstances, if in your power so to do, attend all regular 
signs and summonses that may be thrown or sent out by a brother of this or 
any other degree of this order ; that you will support in all political matters, 



54 

for all political offices 2d degree members of this order, providing it be necessa- 
ry for the American interest; that if it may be done legally, you will, when 
elected to any office remove all foreigners, aliens or Roman Catholics from office, 
and that you will in no case appoint such to othce. All this you promise 
■and declare on your honor as Americans to sustain and abide by Avithout any 
hesitation or mental reservation whatever. So help you God, and keep you 
steadfast! [Each will answer, "I do."] 

President. — Brother Marshal : You will now present the brothers to the 
Instructor for final instruction in this degree of the order. 

Marshal. — Brother Instructor: By direction of our worthy President, I 
present these brothers before you that you may instruct them in the secrets 
and mysteries of the second degree of the order. 

Lisi'ructor. — Brothers: In this degree we have an entering-sign and coun- 
ter-sign. At the outer door proceed the same as in the first degree. At the 
inner door you will make too distinct raps and proceed as in the first degree, 
giving the second degree pass-word, which is seventy-six, instead of that of 
the first degree. If found to be correct, you will then be admitted, and pro- 
ceed to the centre of the floor, giving the counter-sign, which is made thus : 
Position. — Place the left hand upon the right breast, the right hand ex- 
tended tow-ards the flag of our country, which should be suspended over the 
platform of the President. When recognized, you will quietly take your 
seat. 

Brothers, you are now duly initiated into this, the second degree of the 
order. Renewing the congratulations which we/ extended to you upon your 
admission to the first degree, we admonish you by every tie that may move 
you as patriots to aid us in our efforts to restore the political institutions of 
our country to their original purity. Begin with the youth of our land. 
Refresh their minds with the history of our country, the glorious battles and 
the brilliant acts of patriotism, which is our common inheritance. Point 
them to the wise sagesj and the profound statesmen who founded our govern- 
rnent. Instil into their bosoms an ardent love for the Union. Above all 
else, keep alive in their hearts the memory, the maxims and the deathless 
example of our illustrious Washington. 

Brothers, recalling to your minds the solemn obligations which you have 
severally taken in this and the first degree, I now pronounce you entitled to 
all the privileges of membership in this organization, and the Pre.-ident — 
who ALONE is entitled to communicate it, — will inform you of the name of 
the order. 

President. — Brothers : You are members in fflll fellowship of The Supreme 
Order of the Star Spangled Banner. 



KNOW-NOTHINGISM AN ALIAS OF FEDERALISM. 

No charge was more powerfully urged, or made a deeper impression upon 
the popular mind in Virginia, during the canvass we are delineating, than 
that the Know-Nothing party was but a new form of the old protean party 
of Federalists. We shall not undertake to run over the proofs that were 
adduced in support of this charge. But the identity of the Know-Nothing 
doctrines, of religious intolerance and proscription of foreigners, with the 
leading tenets of the original Federal party, is so striking and palpable, that 
we insert here from the Richmond Examiner of February 20, 1855, repub- 



55 

lished from its issue of September 12, 1854, that journars remarks on this 
subject : 

The Paternity of Know-Nothingism — A Poutical Chronicle. — 
The Democratic parly of this country was first built up by Jefferson and 
Madison, for the purpose of cru.hini:; fbe Federal or Native American party, 
of which John Adams \va« the oiiicial head. Native Americanism, in what- 
ever name or under whatever disguise it appears, is no recent thmg m this 
country. It is a hoary and oft punished abomination of the Federal party. 
Opposition to the foreigner, cruel, intolerant, and lawless, has, at niter- 
vals, characterized that party ever since 1787. It is true that the Federal 
party had no formal existence at that time ; but the men who, a few years 
afterwards, became the leaders of the Federal parly manifested their hos- 
tility to foreign born citizens during the deliberations of the Convention 
which framed the Constitution of the United States. The men who shaped 
and penned the odious alien law, sought to engraft " Nativeism" upon 
the organic law of the country. 

The Madison Papers establish the fact that the leading Federal members 
of the Convention of 1787, sought every opportunity for excluding the ior- 
eigners from the most valued rights of citizenship. Upon the subject of 
naturalization, a majority of the^ subsequent leaders of this party were in 
favor of a prohibitory period of twenty-one years. Governeur Morns, af- 
terwards the Corypheus of Federalism, was the leader of the party hostile 
to all foreigners seeking a refuge in America ; whilst James Madison was 
the leader of the noble ""party v/hich proclaimed in the Convention— and that 
in the broadestjsense— the doctrines of equal rights and untrammeled religious 
and civil liberty, to native and foreign born citizens. That great Virginian, 
whose principles now form the basis^of those of the Democratic party, was 
thus earlv enlisted, by all the sympathies of his generous heart, in defence 
of the poverty-stricken, the oppressed, the persecuted and unfortunate of 
every clime. The unexampled growth and prosperity of this republic illus- 
trates the wisdom and sagacity of those noble sympathies. He recognized 
and proclaimed that America was forever to be the home of the victims of 
European despotism, religious and political, and the Constitution stands as 
the "Ark and Covenant" of the solemn pledges of our forefathers. _ The 
great principles of republicanism taught Jefferson, Madison and Washington 
the propriety and wise policy of extending to respectable foreign emigrants 
that protection and those privileges which would bind them by the ties of 
gratitude and affection to the land of their adoption. This they considered 
better than having in our midst a class of discontented, restless persons, des- 
titute of all those political privileges which constitute the pride of an 
American citizen. Evidences of this spirit of Catholic humanity, as well 
as of statesmanlike sagacity, are everywhere to be found in the debates of the 
Convention of 1787. Thus, in the Madison Papers, page 1300 : 

" Mr. Madison wished to maintain the character of liberality which had 
been professed in all the constitutions and publications of America. He 
wished to invite foreigners of merit and republican principles among us. 
That part of America which had encouraged them most, had advanced 
most rapidly in population, agriculture and the arts." 

Contrast this noble and benevolent language with that of a leading Fed- 
eralist, who, with all the stupidity and bigotry of his party, opposed the 
protection of all foreign born citizens. 

Mr. Morris said, Madison Papers, page 1277: 

" As to the citizens of the world (emigrants) he did not wish to see 
them in our councils. He would not trust them. The men who shake 
off their attachments to their mother country can never love another." 



56 

This is lansjiiage \vitl) which none bnt a Federalist, disgusted with repub- 
licanism, could have insulted a convention of patriots and heroes, who were 
fresh from battle fields, where the great struggle was to " shake off" an un- 
natural and oppressive mother country. And in this extract we have the 
sum and substance of that senseless and brutal hostility which the Federal 
party practiced, under all its names and disguises, from 17S7 to 1855. The 
mere fact of emigration, not the vices of the emigrant, is the crime. The 
oaths of naturalization and allegiance violate the old English and Federal 
doctrine of " once a subject, always a subject." If the emigrant has been 
dnven away by the unjust, cruel laws, or lawlessness — as the case may be 
— of the mother country ; if he has been imprisoned, pillaged, and denied 
the right of worshiping his God in his own way, by the same mother coun- 
try, it is still a crime for him, in another and more congenial land, to make 
that oath of allegiance which a heart overwhelming with gratitude dictates. 
In reply to Mr. Morris' denunciation of foreign citizens, I\Tr. Madison 
said : 

" He thought any restriction, however, in the Constitution unnecessary 
and improper ; unnecessary because the National Legislature is to have the 
right of regulating naturalization * * — improper because it will give a 
tincture of illiberality to the Conetitution ; because it will put it out of the 
power of the National Legislature, even by special acts of naturalization, 
to confer upon meritorious strangers the full rank of citizenship ; and be- 
cause it will discourage the most desirable class of people from emigrating 
to the United States. Should the proposed Constitution have the intended 
eflect of giving stability and reputation to our government, great numbers of 
respectable Europeans, men who loved liberty, and wisiied to paitake of 
its blessings, would be ready to transfer their fortunes hither." — Jllndison 
Papers, page 1278. 

The leaders of the Federal party who labored to convert every foreign 
emigrant into a sort of Helot, and endeavored to perpetuate his degradation 
by registering in the organic laws of the United States the act of outlawry, 
were not disheartened by their defeat in the Convention of 1787. The 
journals and debates of the first and second Congress after the adoption and 
ratification of the Federal Constitution, prove that when the naturalization 
laws were under consideration and discussion, there w-ere attempts made by 
those who at a subsequent period supported John Adams, to deny all emi- 
grants the privilege of becoming citizens for twenty years after their arrival 
in this country. Thus, again, did the men who afterwards aided JefTersori 
and Madison in crushing the alien and sedition laws, prevent the Federal 
party from inflicting a grievous wrong upon the foreigners who had sought 
this country to enjoy religious and political liberty. From the baptismal 
font of the Constitution of the United States to the present day, the Demo- 
cratic party has never deserted or disregarded the rights of the respectable 
foreign born citizen. 

But the intense hatred of the Federal party to all foreign born citizens 
triumphed for a brief period during the administration of John Adams. The 
opposition to foreign born citizens of the United States, manifested by a few 
leading Federalists during Washington's administration, became the settled 
policy of that party in 1796. Laws were passed during the administration of 
John Adams for the oppression and punishment of foreign emigrants. To reach 
and crush these unhappy people, the Constitution was violated by the passage of 
the Alien and Sedition Laws. The only object of the law against aliens, 
and the principal object of the Sedition Law, was to deny resident aliens 
and foreign born citizens the rights of native born Americans. These laws 
were aimed especially against German, French, Scotch, Irish and English 
emigrants. They were genuine native American laws for the persecution of 



57 

foreign born citizens. The Alien law enabled the President to arrest a man 
not only without trial, not only without conviction, not only without certain 
information, but upon mere suspicion; and when arrested, to send him from 
the country or cast him into prison. It denied the right of trial by jury, the 
privi!oi>;o of habeas corpus — in a word, the privileges of trial which we ex- 
tend to the vilest negro. The other law — that against sedition — was intend- 
ed to close the mouths of the people, to prevent free discussion, to muzzle 
the press, to check the constituent from commenting upon the acts of his 
representatives, and to render the President sacred by penal enactments. 
The humblest mechanic, or editor, who should express in print his opinion of 
the President or any member of Congress, chai-ging them with faithlessness 
in the discharge of their duties, was liable under the Sedition law, to im- 
prisonment and a fine of two thousand dollars. Each single soul within the 
compass of this Union, native or foreign born, great or stnall, rich or poor, 
who uttered, whispered, or declared anything containing a charge against the 
President, was subject to the penalties of this abominable law. 

We have said that both the Alien and the Sedition laws were intended for 
the oppression of foreign born citizens. The Alien law was intended to 
bear upon none others than foreigners ; the Sedition law, as Adams well 
knew, would operate expressly against that class. During the administration 
of John vVdams, the brilliant and most uncompromising opponents of his 
unconstitutional measures, were the political refugees from other countries. 
These men having suffered from the oppression of monarchical laws at home, 
were naturally the advocates of a republican form of government. They 
believed with Thomas Jetlerson, in his letter to IMazzei, that under the 
blighting influence of Federalism, — 

" In the place of that noble love of liberty and republican government wliich A 
carried us through the war, an Anglican monarchical and aristocratic party had 
sprung up, whose avowed object is to draw over us the substance, as they 
have already done the powers, of the British government." 

And another authority informs us that: 

" There were then two hundred papers published in the United States; 
one hundred and seventy-eight were in favor of the Federal administration ; 
about twenty-two were opposed to the measures then adopted, and a greater 
portion of these were in the hands of foreigners." — Williams' Adminisira- 
iion of John. Adams, p. 133. 

This affords a clue to the secret reasons which governed the Federal party 
in passing the Sedition law. It was to crush these twenty-two independent 
presses — to put down all opposition to the monarchical and unconstitutional 
proceedings of the Executive and a corrupt legislature. The first piosecu- 
tions under this act were of four editors, three of whom w^re foreigners. 
The treatment of Callender, Cooper, Lyon and Holt, furnish the best com- 
mentary upon the Sedition law. Peters, Iredell, Addison, and Chase, were 
the judicial blood-hounds let loose upon these foreign born Democratic edi- 
tor*. Mr. Lyon, an intelligent Englishman, in a Democratic paper, called 
"The Time-Piece," spoke of " the ridiculous pomp, idle parade, and selfish 
avarice " of John Adams. — (Wood's Suppressed History of Adams' Admin- 
istration, page 164.) — He was arrested, tried and convicted by a packed 
jury, and Judge Iredell, after commenting upon the heinous crime of ridi- 
culing the President, passed sentence : 

"That you be imprisoned four months for the costs of this trial, and fined 
one thousand dollars." — W/iarfofi's State Trials of the U. S., page 337. 
"This unfortunate man was then conducted out of court and thrown into a 
dungeon six feet square, where he was left to starve during a rigorous win- 
ter." — Wood's Suppressed History, page 156. 

We might multiply, if it was necessary, the cases of cruel prosecution and 



i^. 



58 

persecution practiced by the Federal judges and Federal officers upon our for- 
eign born citizens during the administration of Adams. They wei-e hunted 
byoilicial blood-hounds, remorseless as Mohawks, convicted by packed juries, 
and sentenced by judges as corrupt as Jeflries. 

These were the blessings, this the protection afforded to foreign born citizens 
by the Federal Whig administration of John Adams. All the power, all the 
influence of that administration, were directed against the foreigners who 
sought refuge in this country after the revolution — for they were Democrats. 
They took grounds for Thomas Jefferson, and against the Federal party, and 
they were hunted down for this crime, as if they had been beasts of prey, 
and unworthy of the protection which the negro now enjoys. 

They were torn from their homes at the discretion of the President, and 
the social rights of freemen, open accusation, habeas corpus, and trial by jury, 
denied. They were incarcerated if they dared to arraign a public oflicer for 
political misdeeds. 

The Native American party of the days of John Adams was more respecta- 
ble, both in numbers and measures, than any that has since existed. It had for 
its leaders nearly all the educated aristocratic members of that Federal party 
which, during George Washington's eight years' administration, was omnipotent 
in the United States. It had the prestige of education, wealth, talent, posi- 
tion, office, and members. It is idle to suppose that any subsequent organi- 
zation of Native Americans, under any name or disguise, will ever equal in 
strength or influence the Native American organization of 1796. The 
first had for its executive head a patriot of the revolution, John Adams ; the 
last has for its head the drunken senator in Congress of one of the smallest 
etates in the Union. So odious did Native Americanism become in ISOO, 
that the Democratic party, formally organized only two years before — led on 
by two great Virginians — crushed the party that originated the Alien and 
Sedition laws, and elevated Jefferson to the Presidency. The present Demo- 
cratic party was formed for the purpose of repealing the Alien and Sedition 
laws. "Justice to the oppressed foreigners," was the cry of the Democratic 
masses who rallied to the resolutions of r798-'99. Those resolutions the 
national Democratic party unanimously endorsed at Baltimore in 1852. 

The Old Dominion, God bless her, ever true to the Constitution, was first 
to raise the battle-cry in defence of persecuted foreigners, who were every 
where falling victims to the Alien and Sedition laws. 

The Virginia resolutions of '98 and '99, and the report of James Madi- 
son in their vindication, prove this. The following constitutes the fourth of 
the series : 

" That the General Assembly doth particularly protest against the palpable 
and alarming infractions of the Constitution in the two late cases of the 
Alien and Sedition acts, passed at the late session of Congress ; the first of 
which exercises a power delegated to the Federal government, and which, 
by uniting legislative and judicial powers to those of the Executive, utterly 
subverts the general principle of a free government as well as the particular 
organization and positive provisions of the Federal Constitution ; and the 
other of which acts exercises a power not delegated by the Constitution ; a 
power which, more than any other, ought to excite unusual alarm, because 
it is leveled against that right of freely examining public measures and 
character, which has ever been justly deemed the only effectual guardian of 
every other right." 

The 8th of the series is not less emphatic. Speaks of the Alien and Sedi- 
tion laws as 

" Acts which assume to create, define, and punish crimes, other than 
those enumerated in the Constitution, are altogether void and of no force, 
and that the power to create, define and punish such other crimes, is reserved, 



59 

and of right appertains solely and exclusively, to the respective states, each 
within its own territory." 

Indeed, so indignant was the Whig Central Committee at Washington 
with the Democratic party, for having reatfirmed their former anti-Native 
American resolutions of i798-'99, that it burst forth during the canvass of 
1852 in the following tirade against the fourth and eighth resolutions: 

"These resolutions constituted their political Bible, from which they are 
constantly preaching doctrines utterly subversive of the government, and 
which would, if entertained by a majority of even one or two states, involve 
us in the horrors of civil war." 

The Democratic party, under the lead of .lefTerson, acquired, by advoca- 
ting a repeal of the Alien and Sedition laws, a popularity in the country 
which it has never lost. A wise and prevalent change of the policy of the 
general government towards foreign born emigrants characterized the ad- 
ministration of Thomas Jeflerson. In his first annual message he recom- 
mended to Congress the adoption of naturalization laws calculated to attract 
intelligent emigrants from all portions of Europe. The Democratic party, 
during the first session of Congress after Jefferson's election to the presi- 
dency, lost no time in repealing those infamous and unconstitutional Alien 
and Sedition laws by which the "first Native American party in this country 
oppressed the friendless strangers of every clime. 

The liberal, humane and republican policy of Jefferson towards our foreign 
born citizens was imitated by Madison, and tended greatly to increase the 
emigration to the United States. Thousands of useful men flocked to this 
country. The repeal of the original naturalization laws, which required a 
residence of fourteen years previous to the naturalization, took place during 
Jefferson's administration. 

The war of 1812 was declared and conducted by the Democratic party 
mainly for the purpose of protecting our foreign born citizens from the British 
pretence that Enirlishmen could not get rid of their allegiance. This 
doctrine was, as we have seen, the popular one with several leading federalists 
who were members of the Convention of 1787. It was denied by the 
Democratic party of the United States, and as Great Britain proceeded to 
practice it, war war the result. This was as usual, the Whigs of that day 
considered damnable and accursed, and all Native Americans, Yankee 
cowards and New England parsons denounced the war, Mr. INIadison and the 
foreign born citizens, in the style with which the war with Mexico was 
abused. The Whig party not only opposed the war for the defence of our En- 
glish born citizens, but called a convention to abuse and villify the authors of 
the Avar and to burn blue lights for the enemy. The convention is pretty 
generally known as the Hartford Convention, and was composed of a varied 
assortment of Whigs, Federalists, cowards, traitors, Yankee demagogues, 
and parsons, every man of whom richly deserved hanging. In this conven- 
tion, the proceedings of which constitute the most nefarious chapter of our 
political history, there was again manifested the most settled and deep rooted 
hostility to the foreign born citizens. The sentiment which blazed in 1787, 
which was embodied in the Alien and Sedition laws of 1796, and which was 
crushed in 1800 and 1801, burnt fiercely in 1812. 

The following extract, from the proceedings of the Hartford Convention, 
will be worth the perusal of every Democrat who contemplates resorting to 
any other political organization than the party of Madison and Jefferson : 

" Seventhly. — The easy admission of naturalized foreigners, to places of 
trust, honor or profit, operating as an inducement to the malcontent subjects 
of the old world to come to these states in quest of executive patronage and 
to repay it by an abject devotion to executive measures. 

" Another amendment, subordinate in importance, but still in a high de- 



60 

gree expedient, relates to the exclusion of foreigners hereafter arrivin"- ia 
the United States from the capacity of holding offices of trust, honor or 
profit. 

" That the stock of population already in these states is amply sufficient to 
render this nation in due time sufficiently great and powerful, is not a con- 
trovertible question. Nor will it be seriously pretended, that tlie national 
deficiency in wisdom, arts, science, arms, or virtue, needs to be replenished 
from foreign countries. Still, it is agreed, that a liberal policy should offer 
the rights of hospitality, and the choice of settlement, to those who are dis- 
posed to visit the country. But why admit to a participation in the govern- 
ment aliens who were no parties to the compact — who were ignorant of the 
nature of our institutions, and have no stake in the welfare of the country 
but what is recent and transitory? It is surely a privilege sufficient, to 
admit them, after due probation, to become citizens for all but political pur- 
poses. To extend it beyond these limits, is to encourage foreigners to come 
to these states as candidates for preferment. The convention forbear to 
express their opinion upon the inauspicious effects which have already 
resulted to the honor and piece of this nation, from this misplaced and indis- 
criminate liberality. 

" Sixth. — No person who shall hereafter be naturalized shall be eligible as 
a member of the Senate or House of Representatives of the United States, 
nor capable of holding any civil office under the authority of the United 
States." 

Here we have Know-Nothingism with a vengeance. Neither the Native 
American party of 1844, nor its nameless off-pring of 1854, can boast of 
much progress since the days of the Hartford Convention of 1812. Every 
odious feature of the modern creed seems to have been embodied in that of 
the traitor and cowards, who met at Hartford to plot and conspire against 
their own countr}' in time of war. Really Native Americanism, although 
possessing a long pedigree, will hardly venture to boast of its disreputable 
ancestors. Its blood has certainly coursed through very dirty and unclean 
channels ever since its birth in the Convention of 1787. 

Nativeism is a foul and ugly eruption that has broken out upon the body 
of the Federal Whig party every twenty or thirty years for the last sixty- 
odd years. Democracy found a cure for the disease in 1787, in 1800, in 
1812 and in 1844, and it will do so in 1855 and 1856. The swilling Sena- 
tor of Delaware is no match for those who 'fight for the great principles of 
Jefferson and Madison. The influence and opinions of two such dead states- 
men are ample, in the old Dominion, against the machinations of twenty 
thousand midnight politicians in disguise and without a name. Temporary 
defeat — if defeat were possible — in the defence of the largest civil and reli- 
gious liberty guaranteed to all by the Constitution, would but nerve the Dem- 
ocratic party to a more vigorous and determined struggle. God never 
intended this fair land to be ruled by people who register their decrees for 
the destruction of the Constitution in secret and midnight conclaves. 

Foreign Born Democratic Martyrs. — The subject of martyrdom, 
Popi.sh and political, has become a theme of much popular excitement and 
of great general interest, and we expect soon to have a series of awful reve- 
lations from Sam disclosing the existence of Spanish inquisitions in every 
hamlet of a thousand inhabitants in the land. Mrs. Partington is also said 
to entertain and to have expressed the opinion that the Jesuits are at the 
bottom of Know-Nothingism, and that a thumb screw can be found in the 
breeches-pocket of every member of the second degree of the secret order. 
There is an interesting chapter of domestic martyrology to which justice has 
never been done, and when the next edition of Fox's Martyrs appears, we 



61 

hope to SCO it incorporated in its far-famed pages. We refer to the foreign 
born citizen* of this country who were, fifty-.seven years ago, persecuted by 
the early Know-Nothings, or Federalists, for exercising liberty of the press 
and of speech. 

For Democracy, in its infancy in this country, had to contend against a 
Know-Nothing, proscriptive, Native American spirit, more ferocious and 
intolerant than that which now, in secrecy and at midnight, is seeking to 
trami)le the Constitution under foot. From the very commencement of our 
government, the more intelligent political refugees and foreign emigrants 
instinctively attached themselves to the old Democratic party. When that 
party was weak, and in a hopeless minority, our foreign born citizens were 
loyal and true as they now are. When the Federalists, with aristocratic 
pomp and splendor, misruled the land, they failed to win the confidence of 
the emigrants who had fled from monarchy and slavery at home to find lib- 
erty and Democracy in this country. The early emigrants to this country 
were men of education and intelligence. The political disturbances of 
the latter part of the eighteenth century drove them across the Atlantic 
by thousands. Jeflerson, from his distinguished sympathies for the cause of 
liberty all over the world, was the object'of their especial admiration. Long 
suffering and tyranny at home having made them familiar with all the odious 
phases of aristocracy, however skilfully disguised, they saw through the thin 
and semi-transparent mask of republicanism with which the elder Adams 
and his party sought to conceal their opinions and purposes. Hence, the 
peevishness and notorious irascibility of that testy old gentlemarl were kept 
constantly at boiling point by the foreign born Democracy. 

There were, in 1787, only twenty-two Democratic newspapers in the 
United States, and of that number twenty were edited by foreigners. Their 
assaults drove the Federal party almost to madness. Jefferson records in 
his "^rt//*"how Adams and his political associates writhed under the as- 
saults of these men. The Federal party, however, was then powerful in 
numbers and resources. Adams had inherited the abundant popularity of 
his great predecessor, but to lose it by his folly, tyranny and aristocratic 
proclivities. He was too proud to correct the errors of his administration, 
and held his Democratic opponents, native and foreign, in too great contempt 
to attempt to conciliate them. He endeavored to put down Democracy, as 
Know-Nothingism proposes to crush out Catholicism, by persecution. For- 
getting that in a republic, all laws rest upon public opinion, he thought to 
strangle Democracy by unconstitutional enactments against aliens and the 
liberty of the press, the attempt was made, and "the blood of the mar- 
tyrs became the seed of the church." A Federal Congress readily obeyed 
his wishes and enacted the alien, and sedition laws. Armed with those stat- 
utes for two years he wreaked his vengeance mainly on Democrats of for- 
eign birth. At the end of that time the Democratic party arose like a 
young giant, and dashed the whole structure of Federalism to the earth, 
hurled the old party from power, and inaugurated the great National Demo- 
cratic party of this country. From that day to this, foreign born citizens 
have been ever faithful to the Democratic party. The reasons for this last- 
ing friendship are honorable alike to both parties. The only Democratic 
martyrs of this country were foreign born citizens, and when the Demo- 
cratic party waxed strong they blotted from our statute books all the uncon- 
Btitutional laws by which our foreign born citizens were once placed at the 
mercy of a Federal Executive. 

For the express purpose of depriving this class of citizens of their rights 
and liberties, the following laws were enacted by Congress, July 6th, and 
14th, 1798. As the Knov/-Nothing.i are endeavoring to manufacture a pro- 
acriptive 'spirit in the United States precisely similar to that of the year 



62 

1798, it may be well for the people of Virginia to learn a few timely and 
instructive lessons from a perusal of the laws in question. 

The Sedition Law enacted — 

"That if any person shall write, print, utter, or publish, or shallj cause or 
procure to be written, printed, uttered, or published, or shall knowingly and 
willingly assist, or aid in writing, printing, uttering, or publishing any false, 
scandalous and malicious writings or writing against the government of the 
United States, or either house of the Congress of the United States, or the 
President of the United States, with intent to defame the said government, 
or either house of the said Congress, or the said President, or to bring them 
into contempt or disrepute, or to excite against them, or either or any of 
them, the hatred of the good people of the United States, or to stir up sedition 
within the United States, * * * * # j^e shall be punished 
by a fine not exceeding two thousand dollars, and by imprisonment not ex- 
ceeding two years. — 1 Peters' Statutes at Large, p. 598." 

The '' Ahen Act," the provisions of which are too long for insertion in 
exienso in this article, provided — 

" That the President of the United States shall be and is hereby author- 
ized, in any event aforesaid, by his proclamation thereof, or other public 
act, to direct the conduct to be observed on the part of the United States to- 
wards aliens * * * * the manner and degree of the restraint 
to which they shall be subjected, and in what cases and upon what security 
their residence shall be permitted, and to provide for the removal of those 
who, not being permitted, to reside in the United States, shall refuse or neg- 
lect to depart therefrom. — 1 Peters' Statutes at Large, page 577." 

It is with difficulty that the present generation can be taught to believe 
that such laws as we have given above once disgraced our statute books, 
abridging the liberty of speech, and leaving aIiens\ipon our soil completely 
at the mercy of the President, denying them the right of trial by jury, and 
of confronting their accusers. 

Not only, however, were there such laws, but, as we shall presently see, 
more than one foreign born Democrat was martyred for his hatred of feder- 
alism and love for the principles of Jefferson. 

\.— The Case of Mat hew Lyon.— [American State Trials, pp. 333, 343.] 
Mathew Lyon was an Irishman by birth, who came to this country uneducated 
and destitute. By energy and honesty he arose from the position of an 
apprentice to that of a representative in Congress from the state of Ver- 
mont. Whilst a member of Congress he distinguished himself by his patri- 
otic devotion to the cause of Democracy, and his spirited opposition to 
Adams' administration. 

In exercising the privileges of his office as a representative in Congress, he 
addressed a series of articles to his constituents, commenting upon the char- 
acter of the administration of John Adams. In consequence of this, on the 
5th of October, 1798, he was indicted for a seditious libel, and the indict- 
ment set forth the following libellous matter: 

"As to the executive, when I shall see the efforts of that power bent on 
the promotion of the comfort, the happiness, and accommodation of the peo- 
ple, that executive shall have my zealous and uniform support; but when- 
ever I shall, on the part of the executive, see every consideration of the 
public welfare swallowed up in a continual grasp for power, in an unbounded 
thirst for ridiculous pomp, foolish adulation and selfish avarice ; when I shall 
behold men of real merit daily turned out of office for no other cause but 
independency of sentiment; when I shall see men of firmness, merit, years, 
ability and experience, discarded in their applications for office, for fear they 
possess that independence, and men of meanness preferred for the ease with 
which they take up and advocate opinions, the consequence of which they 



63 

know nothing ; when I shall see the sacred name of religion employed as a 
state engine to make mankind hate and persecute one another, I shall not be 
their humble advocate." 

Although this language was as just as it was proper and legitimate, yet a 
packed jury of Yankee Federalists found the defendant guilty, and a Fede- 
ral hack, Judge Patterson, pronounced the following sentence: 

" Rlathew Lyon, as a member of the federal legislature, you must be well 
acquainted with the mischiefs which flow from an unlicensed abuse of the 
government, and of the motives which led to the passage of the act under 
which this indictment is proved. * * Your position, so far from 
making the case one which might slip with a nominal fine through the hands 
of the court, would make impunity conspicuous, should such a fine be im- 
posed. What, however, has tended to mitigate the sentence, which would 
otherwise have been imposed, is, what I am sorry to hear of, the reduced 
condition of your estate. The judgment of the court is, that you stand 
imprisoned four months, pay the cost of prosecution, and a fine of one thou- 
sand dollars, and stand committed until this sentence be complied with." 

The mildness of early Know-Nothing despotism is here beautifully illus- 
trated. A foreign born Democrat addresses a letter to his constituents, com- 
menting upon the executive department of the government, as was his duty 
as their representative ; he is tried for it by a packed jury and a federal 
court, found guilty, and assured by the judge that the magnitude of his 
offence is greatly increased by his being a member of Congress, and that the 
only regret of the federal Jeffries is, that the smallness of the defendant's 
fortune forced him to fine him only one thousand dollars. 

All of Lyon's sentence was rigourously enforced. He was at first denied 
the use of pen, ink, paper and books, and confined in a cell sixteen feet wide 
by twelve long, (see Wharton's State Trials, p. 341,) the common receptacle 
for horse-thieves, money-forgers, runaway negroes, and other rascals and 
felon;*. 

A Federal newspaper thus gloated in coarse and inhuman joy over his 
imprisonment, precisely as a Know-Nothing organ of the present day would 
do if a foreign born Democrat was to be ejected from office : 

" The Lyon of Vermont. — To-morrow morning, at 11 o'clock, will be ex- 
posed to view the Lyon of Vermont. This singular animal is said to have 
been caught in the bogs of Hibernia, and when quite a whelp transported 
to America; curiosity inducing a New Yorker to buy him., and moving to 
the country, afterwards exchanged him for a yoke of young bulls with a 
Vermonter. * * His pelt resembles more the wolf, or the tiger, and his 
gestures bear a remarkable resemblance to the bear; this, however, may be 
ascribed to his having been in the habit of associating with that species of 
wild beast on the mountains. He was brought to this place in a wag'^^on. — 
Porcupine Gazette, June 6i/i, 1797." 

But this poor man, whilst languishing in a foul and unwholsome prison 
during the cold months of a New England winter, the victim of a tyrant 
whose native American antipathies the Know-Nothings of .the present day 
appear to have adopted, was not forgotten by a faithful constituency. They 
espoused his cause, and whilst in the clutches of his Federal oppressors, 
re-elected him to Congress — the records of the day showing the following 
vote : 

Lyon, (Democrat, and in prison,) 3,482 

Williams, Federalist, 1,554 



Lyon's majority, LD^S 

Released from prison amid the tumultous rejoicings of his friends, he 



64 

repaired to Philadelphia to take his seat in the Congress to which he had 
been elected whilst in jail. 

The insolent Federal majority in the House of Representatives met him 
vith the following resolution : 

"Resolved, That Mathew Lyon, a member of this House, having been 
convicted of being a notorious and seditious person, and of a depraved mind 
and wicked and diabolical disposition, and of wickedly, deceitfully and ma- 
liciously contriving to defame the government of the United States, and of 
liaving, with design and intent to d«fame John Adams, President of the 
United States * * * be therefore expelled from thi^ House." 

The Federalists were all willing to expel this persecuted foreigner ; but 
Mr. Nicholas, of Virginia, eloquently defended him, and they could not ^ei 
a two-thirds' vote. Again the great Federal organ of that day aimed its 
envenomed darts at poor Lyon's head, February, 1799: 

'■ Lyon looks remarkably well for a gentleman just out of jail. This man's 
re-election, whilst confined as a criminal, is a new and striking proof of 
the excellence of universal suffrage. # # * Happy the nation where 
there is but one step frsm the dungeon to the Legislature. Well might the 
pathetic Mr. ftlurray, (speaking of the old alien law,) express his fears that 
the influx of foreigners would " contaminate the purity and simplicity of 
American manners." 

This is a very fair specimen of Know-Nothing sentiment fifty-six years 
ago. 

The persecuted Lyon lived, however, to wrest the state of Vermont tem- 
porarily from Federal misrule, subsequently rernoved to the state of Ken- 
tucky, represented that state in the House of Representatives from 1803 to 
1811, refused the office of commissary for the Western army, which was 
tendered to him by Thomas Jefferson, and died at the advanced age of 
jeventy-eight. He survived the old Know-Nothing or Federal party more 
than a quarter of a century, and on the 4th of July, 1840, Congress refunded 
to his representatives, with interest, the iniquitous fine of one thousand dol- 
lars, imposed upon him in 1799. 

Next m the list of foreign born citizens who braved fine and imprison- 
ment in defence of Democracy, and by fierce denunciations of Federalism, 
»tands — 

l\.—The case of Jlnihony HosivcII.—Amev. State Trials, pp. 584, 687. 

Anthony Hoswell was born in England in 17S3, a gentleman by birth 
and education, who espoused to cause of freedom, and fought on the 
jside of the colonies during the revolutionary war, and perilled his life at 
Monmouth. 

He subsequently became distinguished as a Democratic editor, and 
especially by his boldness and talent excited the hatred of the Federal 
party. 

In 1800, at Windsor, in the state of Vermont, he was, under the "Sedition 
act," indicted for publishing, as the Federalists avered, the following libellous 
matter: 

To the enemies of political persecution in the Western district of Vermont : 
Your representative (Mathew Lyon) is holden by the oppressive hand of 
Usurped power in a loat-hsome prison, deprived almost of the right of reason, 
and suffering all the indignities which can be heaped upon him by a hard- 
hearted savage, who has, to the disgrace of Federalism, been elevated to a 
station where he can satiate his barbarity on the misery of his victims. 
But in spite of Fitch, (the marshal) and to their sorrow, time will pass away, 
and the month of February will arrive and bring with it the defender of our 
right? No. Without exertion it will not. Eleven hundred dollars must 1$ 
paid for his ransom, 6^'c. 



65 

Although the prisoner proved the truth of every allegation in Ihe matter 
charged as libellous, the jury returned a verdict of guilty, and the court sen- 
tenced the prisoner to a iine of two hundred dollars and impri.soriment for 
two months. 

The indignities with which this noble and bold Democrat was treated 
after he w'as arrested was the subject of bitter party feeling for a long 
time. 

He was arrested at night, and notified to prepare for a journey to Rutland 
early in the morning. Accordingly, at a very early hour, Mr. IIo^^weIl, 
alfiiough in very poor health and totally unaccustomed to riding, was com- 
pelled to mount a horse and ride sixty miles through the rain on a cold day ia 
October, to the jail at Rutland. Here he was thrown into a filth}' prison at 
midnight, notwithstanding his entreaties to be permitted to dry his clothes, 
which were saturated with the rain. Several of the most responsible men 
in Rutland offered any security the marshal might demand, to induce him to 
grant these requests, but in vain. The prisoner was thrown into the prison, 
and never afterwards recovered entirely from the shock thus given his health. 
His sentence was rigidly carried out, and at the expiration of his term of 
confinement, an immense concourse of people from the neighboring country 
assembled to welcome him back to liberty, and to signalize their disapproba- 
tion of his imprisonment. He marched forth from his quarters at the jail to 
the tune of Yankee Doodle, played by a band, while the discharge of cannon 
signified the general satisfaction at his release. [See Wharton's Criminal 
Trials, page 687.] 

This victim of early Native Americanism was, says a distinguished author, 
"highly respected, not only by his friends, but by his political opponents. 
He was distinguished in private life by exemplary conduct in the discharge 
of his duties, and by his devotion to the moral and religious improvement of 
society." [Wharton, page 688.] 

Mr. Hoswell was a gentleman, a brave revolutionary soldier, wedded to 
the cause of liberty; but as he was a Democrat, and a foreign born citizen, 
he was treated like a common felon by the Know-Nothings of 1798. But 
the list of foreign born Democrats who stood by our party in its infancy, and 
braved persecution and the torture of cruel imprisonment for their opinions, 
is a long one. 

HI. — The Case of Thomas Cooper. — [American Slate Trials, page 677.] 
The learned and celebrated Thomas Cooj)er was the next victim sacrificed to 
gratify John Adams' hatred of foreign born Democrats, whose blows were 
aimed principally at the accomplished Democratic writers whose pens were 
driving him to desperation. 

Thomas Cooper was an Englishman b}' birth, and a graduate of Oxford. 
He was the intimate friend of the celebrated Priestly, and a barrister, an au- 
thor of distinction, and a chemi.-t of great reputation. He was, at difi'erent 
periods in his life, a professor in Dickinson College, and also in the Univer- 
sity of Pennsylvania. He was for several years a presiding judge of one of 
the districts of Pennsylvania, and filled a professorship in Columbia College, 
South Carolina, for man}'' years previous to his death. His translation of 
the " Pandects of Justinian" is regarded as a master piece of admirable and 
classical scholarship by the legal profession to this day. 

He was an ardent Democrat, and one of the earliest and most devoted 
friends of Thomas Jefi'erson. Hence his appearance in the catalogue of for- 
eign born Democratic martyrs. In 1800, he was tried for what the Know- 
>fothings of that day called " ScdHious Libel," and the libellous matter 
charged in the indictment was as follows. As in the cases already cited, 
our readers will perceive that it was dangerous, in the day of the earlj 
5 



66 

Know-Nothings, for a foreigner to say a word against the Federal party and 
their aristocratic president. But to the libellous matter: 

" At that time he (John Adams) had just entered olKce ; he was hardly in 
the infancy of political mistake : even those who doubted his capacity thought 
well of his intentions. Nor were we yet saddled with the expense of a per- 
manent navy, or threatened under his auspices with the existence of a stand- 
ins army. Our credit was not yet reduced so low as to borrow money at 
eight per cent, in time of peace, while the unnecessary violence of oflicial 
expressions might justly have provoked a war. Mr. Adams had not yet 
projected his embassies to Prussia and Russia, nor had lie yet interfered as 
president of the United States to influence the deci.'^ions of a court of justice — 
a stretx;h of authority which the monarch of Great Britain would have shrunk 
from — an interference without precedent against law and against mercy. 
This melancholy case of Jonathan Robbins, a native American, forcibly in"i- 
pressed by the Brilish, and delivered up, witli the advice of Mr. Adams, to 
the mock trial of a British court-martial, had not yet astonished the republi- 
can citizens of this free country; a case too little known, but of which the 
people ought to be fully apprised before the election, and they shall be. — 
[Amer. State Trials, p. 658."] 

As was usual in 1800, when Federal marshals, packed Federal juries, and 
Federal prosecutors and judges agreed in their interpretation of Federal laws, 
Mr. Cooper was found guilty, and the infamous Judge Chase, of Callender 
notoriety, sentenced the defendant " to pay a fine of four hundred dollars, to 
be imprisoned for six months, and at the end of that period to find surety for 
himself in a thousand, and two securities in five hundred dollars each." — 
[Wharton's Criminal Trials, page 679.] 

But the length of this article admonishes us to hasten on with our list of 
foreign born Democrats who were true to our cause when courage was more 
essential in the defence of our sentiments than at present. 

IV. — Case of WilUnm Dunne. — [American State Ti-ials, page 344.] — Wm. 
Duane was born in this country, but as his parents were Irish emigrants, he 
spent the early part of his life in Ireland, his mother having returned to that 
country after the death of her husband. He was the first editor of the cele- 
brated London Times, and the intim.atc friend of Home Tooke. He return- 
ed to this country in 1795, and became the editor of the leading Democratic 
organ of that day, the Aurora. Mr. Jefferson always declared that he was 
indebted to " Duane and the Aurora newspaper for his election to the presi- 
dency." The justice and severity of his attacks upon the Federal party 
rendered him the object of open violence. During Mr. Adams' administra- 
tion some troops of horse were sent from Philadelphia to Reading, to cut 
down the liberty poles of the Democratic party in "Old Berks," and to per- 
form other heroic achievements w^orthy of Adams and his primitive Know- 
Nothing friends. These body guards of the Federal despot lived very freely 
and indulged in all the license of an enemy's force in a hostile land. 

A letter was publishetl in the Aurora, complaining of their outrages. On 
their return to Philadelphia, a large party of otlicers proceeded to the Aurora 
office, and, placing sentinels over the printers, dragged out the editor of the 
Aurora, Mr. Duane, and beat him until he was insensible. 

Yet this Democratic martyr was a scholar and gentleman, a patriot and a 
soldier, whose works on education, history, military science, politics, and 
political economy, are well known to the present generation. His influence 
and instrumentality in building up the Democratic party, Jeflerson and Mad- 
ison both regarded as great as their own. 

To these cases we might add those of Callender, Reynolds, Moore, Cum- 
niing, Frothingham, and others, all foreign born Democrats — men of educa- 
tion and talents, who were the victims of Federal lawlessness and cruelty, 



67 

when, in 1798, the Native American party was sufficiently strong to deprive 
our foreign born citizens of the right of trial by jury, and of the liberty of 
speech, and of the press. The cases cited at length in this article illustrate 
the atrocious tendency of Native Americanism, when clothed with power 
under the forms of law, to oppress and persecute our foreign born citizens. 

The lessons of experience are always the best that can be read to an in- 
telligent people, — nor will they be lost upon the people of Virginia at this 
time, when, after the lapse of more than half a century, we have a party 
in our midst plotting in secrecy and at midnight to strip our foreign born 
citizens of their rights. 

No true Democrat, bearing in mind the political devotion of the foreign 
born citizens of this country to our principles and measures, from the days 
of their early, persecution by the Federalists to the present, can, or w-ill lend 
his aid to a band or conspirators, seeking, in open disregard of the Constitu- 
tion, to strip these innocent and faithful citizens of their rights. 



ORATORS OF THE CANVASS. 

We can safely assert that political excitement never ran higher in any state, 
than in Virginia in 1855. And we can moreover aver with truth, that there 
never was so general an interest manifested in the discussion of political issues. 
This was attributable principally to two things : in the first place to the facts 
and sound arguments set forth by the talented press of our State ; and secondly, 
to the stirring appeals and impassioned eloquence of our public speakers, They 
addressed the masses in every section of the State, appealing to the time-hon- 
ored principles of the Democratic party, dissecting the monstrous ritual of 
Know Nothingism, and inviting its devotees to meet them in open discussion. 

One of the first speeches of the campaign was a most powerful one, from the 
Hon. Stephen A. Douglass of Illinois, delivered in Richmond in the month of 
March ; but owing to some misunderstanding with the stenographer employed 
by the editor of the Examiner to report it, it was never written out for publica- 
tion. The speech produced a most profound impression in Richmond, and evi- 
dently exerted a great influence in the State, as he addressed an immense 
audience, many of whom were residents of the country. 

The Examiner contained the following extended notice of the Senator's 
oration. 

Judge Douglas in Richmond. — The citizens of Richmond had the plea- 
sure of bearing a speech, Tuesday night, 27th March, from the author of the 
Nebraska-Kansas act. Nothing but a verbatim report would present the address 
in its real strength and merit; for every sentence was an argument, and the 
speech possessed the characteristic of a sphere in compacting the greatest quan- 
tity of matter within the smallest extent of surface. 

His illustration of that great principle — of which himself may be pronounced 
the living emhodimcnt — of the absolute right of the people in each State, and 
territory, (about to become a State,) to decide upon its own institutions, subject 
only to the constitution, a principle which is the very corner stone of State 
Rights politics — was clear, beautiful and conclusive. 

His narration of the incident's of the last year's struggle in Illinois, to defeat 
himself for championing and the Democratic party for endorsing this, principle, 



68 

was interesting in the extreme. He said that this principle was opposed in Illi- 
nois by the Fusion, and he explained that to be a combination of Abolilionists, 
Whigs, Know Nothings and anti-Liquor men, against the great Nebraska prin- 
ciple, and against the Democratic party sustaining it. lie declared that the 
Fusion was thus constituted in every State at the North, except New York, 
where fortuitous circumstances had operated to qualify the rule in some degree. 
Ho admitted that some Democrats had left their own organization and gone into 
the Know Nothing councils; and while he admitted that many Know Nothings 1 
were not Abolitionists, yet he declared that the Abolstionista and Free-soilers 
had the majority in their councils, and controlled the action of the Order, tha 
minority being sworn to co-operate with the majority. 

He also admitted the fact, that the Whigs did not all merge with the Aboli- 
tionists and the Know Nothings in the Fusion ; but that the high-toned und 
honorable portion of that once glorious party co-operated \^th the Democracy 
in the elections. He said that the Democracy of Illinois owed their triumph 
in the State elections by a majority of 3,000 votes, and in Col. W. A. Rich- 
ardson's district in the success of that gallant and indomitable State Ric-hts 
man — to Whig votes. He said that ten per cent, of the Whigs of the State 
had segregated themselves from the mass of their party, and, by rallying to tha 
side of the Democracy, had saved the State ticket and Colonel Richardson. We 
take pleasure in making prominent this declaration of Judge Douglas, for God 
forbid that any Southern editor should refuse to acknowledge a fact so dear to 
the whole South, and so honorable to the Silver Grays of the North. In tha 
same degree that we iterate and reprobate the fact that the Know Nothings of 
the North, as a party, and the great body of the Whigs of the North, as either 
Freesoilers or Know Nothings, oppose the great Douglas-Nebraska-State-Rights 
principle of popular sovereignty — do we rejoice in, exult over and reiterate the 
fact that an honorable, inflexible fragment of the old Whig party of the North 
still cling, even unto political martyrdom, to the Constitution of their country. 

Declaring that the Know Nothings everywhere at the North co-operated with 
the Fusion in ostracising and proscribing Nebraska men and warriag upon the 
Nebraska principle, the Judge went into a calm and most overwhelming argu- 
ment against that organization. He assailed it as hostile to thixt open, free dis- 
mission, which was essential to the health and vitality of popular government. 
His argument upon this topic was as clear and convinci^ig as it was striking and 
©riginal. The Know Nothing Order not only shrank from full and open discus- 
sion before the people, but it struck a deadly blow at the principle of represen- 
tative accountability to the people, by substituting the secret club V/hich nomi- 
nated the legislator or the executive ofhcer, for the people at large, in whom 
©nly is lodged the sovereignty of the State. 

He assailed their oaths in a powerful but calm and respectful argument. An 
•ath to obey the dictation of the club was an oath to disregard the dictates of 
conscience in all cases where the individual's opinion conflicted with-the decree 
«f the Order. It substituted, in a government where the individual and the 
people are sovereign, a conflicting sovereignty and a different and dangerous 
authority, that of a secret and irresponsible cabal. 

He said there were a great many honest men who saw the dilemma in which 
their Know Nothingism [ihiced them as good citizens, and yet were deterred from 
leaving the Order from conscientious scruples in regard to the oath they had 
taken in their initiation. He did not think an oath to violate one's conscience 
©ught to be obeyed, and he cited the passage from St. Mark, reciting the oc- 
currence between Herod and the daughter of Herodias, as illustrating the fatal 
eonsequences of a vicious vow. 

*' For Herod himself had sent forth atid laid hold upon John, and bound hinx 
in prison for Herodias' sake, hia brother Philip's wife; for he bad married her. 



69 

For Jobn bad said unto ITerod, It is not lawful for tlice to have thy brother's 
wife. 

Therefore, Herodias had a quarrel against him, and would have killed him, 
but she could not. 

For Herod feared John, knowing that he was a just man and an holy, and 
observed him; and when he heard him, he did many things, and heard him 
gladly. 

Aud when a convenient day was come, that Herod, on his birth-day, made a 
supper to his lords, higli captains, and chief estates of Galilee ; 

And when the daughter of tho said Herodias came in, aud danced, and pleased 
Herod and them that sat with him, the King said unto the damsel, ask of me 
whatsoever thou wilt, and I will give it thee. 

And he swore .unto her, whatever thou shalt ask of me, I will give it thee, 
even unto half of my kingdom. 

And she went forth, aud said unto her mother, what shall I ask? and she 
said the head of John the Baptist. 

And she came in straightway with haste unto the King, and asked, saying, I 
■wish that thou give me, by and by in a charger, the head of John the Bap- 
tist. 

And the King was exceedingly sorry ; yet /or Zt/'s oa^/i's sa^e, and for their 
sakes which sat with him, he would not reject her." 

The distinguished speaker advised the Democracy against an unlawful alliance 
with the Herodias of Federalism, and against pledging themselves to the damsel 
Know Nothingism, her daughter, by unlawful oaths and rash stipulations of the 
favors, contrary to conscience, to old friendship and to duty. 

He examined the (es(s, prescribed by the Order for office and suffrage, and 
was especially able and powerful in his exposition of their unconstitutionality 
and anti-republicanism. 

The first of these tests, was lirth, a test familiar in England, and in monar- 
chies ; but, until now, unknown in these free States, where the great test was 
merit. Birth was a thing over which men had no control and did not enter at 
all into the republican qualification of merit. It did not follow that everybody 
born on this side of the' Atlantic was fit for sufiVage and ofiice, any more than 
that all born on the other side were unfit. Everybody knew that America 
could produce rogues as well as honest citizens ; indeed he was not sure but 
that she could beat the world in rogues as well as in every other article. She 
certainly produced a larger proportion of honest citizens than any other country j 
for here merit had been made the test of qualification for office, and furnished 
an inducement to rectitude. The test of hirth was arbitrary and aristocratic ; 
the test of merit was philosophic, just, and democratic. It was a great demo- 
cratic test, and true Democrats could not abandon it for the rnonarchial, acci- 
dental and unjust principle, that merit, or qualification, or superiority, was de- 
pendent on birth. His allusion to his gallant colleague, General Shields, a 
soldier who had not shed blood enough for his adopted country to atone for the 
accident of his birth on Irish soil, was touching and eloquent. 

The test of religious lelief was arbitrary, unjust and oppressive. It was 
contrary to the Constitution, which expressly forbade that " any religious test 
should ever be required as a qualification to any office of public trust under this 
government." Every Know Nothing who took an oath binding him to try can- 
didates by this test, took an oath against the Constitution of the Union. He 
did not charge them with intentional culpability in this act, which he knew 
they must have done in thoughtlessness and without due examination, but he 
warned them against persisting in an oath in direct antagonism to the Consti- 
tution of their country. 



70 

We bave glanced rapidly over, and stated loosely some of the leading topics 
of JuJge Douglas's speech. It is possible that we may succeed in obtaining 
from the distinguished Senator, a full report of it; but fearing we might not 
be able to do so, we could not refrain from presenting to our readers the fore- 
going abstract of an address which will long be remembered in Richmond, and 
which was as dignified, national, statesmanlike and able as was ever delivered be- 
fore the people of this city. 

As some cynical objections are rife among the opposition to a citizen from a 
Northern State having thus taken part in our domestic contest, it is due to Mr. 
Douglas to say that it was with great difficulty he could be induced to speak 
here, on his rapid transit through the State, as we personally know. If there 
is a man in the Union in whom such a " crime" would be uo crime, it is in the 
author of the Repeal of the Missouri Proviso. 



MR. HUNTER'S SPEECH IN RICHMOND. 

The speech of Senator R. M. T. Hunter was one of the most argumentative 
and unanswerable that was delivered in the whole campaign. This speech was 
published and extensively circulated, and that with telling effect during the 
canvass. It is a document which will ever repay an attentive perusal. 

Fellow Citizens : I appear before you this evening, not merely to show my 
appreciation of the courtesy of your invitation to address you, but also because, 
in the present critical condition of public aifairs, I desire to commune with my 
friends and constituents. I also wish to speak to the people of this good city, 
who have proved, by their past history, that whenever the safety of the govern- 
ment or the honor of the State demands a service at their hands, the call will 
not be made upon them in vain. I stand here this evening to appeal to you,ia 
the name of both these high considerations, and if I fail to make good that 
appeal, it will be owing to my fault, and not because the occasion does not 
justify it. 

Peace has its trials as well as war; and the same spirit which gathered your 
sons around the flag of the country in the war of 1812, will rally them to the 
defence of the political banner of their native State, if they see it about to be 
prostrated and trampled in the dust] I have said that the present is a critical 
condition of public aft'airs; and, truly, the signs of the times are such as to 
warrant me in thus characterizing it. In the world without we have war, and 
should it continue much longer, or enlarge the field of its operations, it is im- 
possible but that some of its agitations must reach us also. Within, the ele- 
ments of domestic strife are already maturing in angry discontent, as if in pre- 
sage of the coming storm. The cloud which for so long has hung in the 
northeastern quarter of our horizon, grows larger and darker, and is visibly 
Bearing us in the distance. When was it ever before, that a majority of the 
popular branch of Congress would probably be in favour of abolishing slavery 
in the District of Columbia; of abolishing what is called the domestic slave 
trade ; of abolishing slavery whereever it may exist iu the Territories; and to 
repeal the fugitive slave law, to say nothing of the restoration of the odious 
Missouri restriction, now so happily removed ? More than one of the Southern 
States have declared that the execution of some of these measures would pre- 
sent, in their opinion, the "casus fivJeris" itself; and yet to such extremities 
will the present House of Representatives be probably willing to drive us at the 
next session. Such are the trials for which we have already had warning to 
prepare. For the present, a Democratic President and a Democratic Senate 



71 

stand, as "the lion in the path," between them and the execution of their 
measures. IJut these anti-shivery men boast that they liave already secured 
" the Church, the School and the State," the great natural corporations of all 
human society, as they have been not inaptly denominated ; and that they are 
thus possessed of all the main avenues through which public sentiment in the 
North may be concentrated, and poured upon the devoted South. And what 
are our preparations for this contest? It is evident that we must depend upon 
Truth, the. Constitution, the sacred compact of Federation, and such defences as 
Mfe may make in their behalf, for our safety and peace. Are we burnishing our 
armor for the fight ? Are we making ready for the contest ? These are some 
of the topics upon which I desire to commune with you this evening. 

Fellow citizens, it seems to me there is yet another circumstance which must 
make us more anxious with regard to the future. It is, that these issues have 
been precipitated upon us with the assistance of a new and strange party, which 
has arisen in our midst, which, by some wild freak of taste, or in some fit of 
reckless levity, has called itself " the Know Nothing party,'' whose opinions 
upon many important subjects are unknown, and whose principles in regard to 
some other subjects, so far as known, would seem to be highly mischievous and 
dangerous. 

I have said that these isms had been precipitated upon us with the assistance 
of this party in the North. Can there be a doubt of it? They constituted a 
portion of the " fusionists" who sought to turn out young Dodge of Iowa, who 
had been so true to the Constitution and just to the South, and to substitute a 
free-soiler in his place. In Illinois, too, they acted in like manner towards the 
gallant Shields. In Massachusetts, the Know Nothings constituted a m;ijority 
of those who sent Wilson to the Senate of the United States, where his decla- 
rations have been such as to leave no doubt of his extreme and dangerous opi- 
nions upon the subject of slavery. Indeed, I heard Judge Douglass, iu a 
debate in the SenatCj declare that, in the non-slaveholding States, this now 
party, so far as he was acquainted with its history, had invariably cast its vote 
for the anti-slavery and auti-Nebrasbra candidates, and he challenged an instance 
to be produced, in which they had voted for a candidate in favor of the Nebraska 
bill. The case could not be produced, except that Governor Seward mentioned 
some one man in New York, who had been elected to some oftice by the vote of 
the Know Nothings. To which Judge Douglass well replied, that in New York 
there were two Know Nothing parties, one the '' bogus," and the other genuine, 
so that there might be grave mistakes in referring to their action in New York 
for an explanation of their principles. Now, all this proves one of two things, 
either" that this party, in the North, is deeply infected with the abolition feeling, 
or else, that it is so indifferent upon the subject, that it is willing to elect men 
■who would drive the South to any extremity, and expose us to the most severe 
and dangerous trials. How, then, can we affiliate with men who seem to con- 
sider the peace and safety of the South, as the cheap material upon which rash 
experiments may be tried with impunity ? Ought it not to make us anxious to 
find that the overtures for affiliation, made by such a party, have not been in- 
stantly rejected by Southern men with scorn? ^' — -,>._^^ 
/it seems to me, that the very apparition of such a party in our midst, is cal-^ 
culated to inspire feelings of distrust and apprehension. When was it ever 
heard of before, that a party could be organized for political purposes in this 
State, which deliberated and acted iu secret, and veiled the very names of their 
members in impenetrable mystery ! When was it ever before that a party could 
have existed here, avowing itself to be strong enough to seize upon the administra- 
tion of public aflairs in this great confederacy, and yet refusing to declare its 
opinions upon all the leading questions which have heretofore characterised our 
political divisions ? When it ought to speak, it is silent, and some of the sen- 
timents it does speak, in my opinion, ought neither to be entertained nor ut- 



72 

tered. But what can be the purpose of a secret political society in this country, 
or what can be its legitimate object? Under the despotic guvernuieuts of the 
old world, we have heard of such organizations, but their object was to strike 
at the ruling power in the State; they concealed not only their deliberations 
and actions, but also the names of their members, because if either had been 
known, their rulers would not only have frustrated their purposes, but punished 
the individuals who entertained them. Under such circumstances, we can see 
some reason for their secrecy, but what excuse can be offered for a secret polit- 
ical organization in this country ? Here the ruling power is that of the people; 
it is popular sovereignty which governs. Is that the power which this new 
party strikes at? is it popular government which they wish to subvert? Why 
conceal themselves and their action from its supervision, unless they fear it; 
and, why fear it, unless they are opposed to it ? What they profess upon this 
Bubject we do not know ; this may be amongst the secrets of the prison house^ 
~ But this we do know that they refuse their sympathies to the people, and strike 
at the wholesome and legitimate influences of public opinion, by acting secretly 
and withdrawing from its jurisdiction. Nuw I say, that the party which strikes 
at the just influence of public opinion, and refuses to submit its political action 
to that wholesome jurisdiction, strikes at popular government itself, for it is 
through the action of the former that the latter becomes practicable or even pos- 
sible. Why is it that we so often hear it said of such, and such a people, that 
for them a popular and free form of government is impossible? Because there 
exists not amongst them a suiBciently free and enlightened state of public opin- 
ion to enable the peoj:>le to direct properly the affairs of their government, j^ut 
how can public opinion be either purified or enlightened, unless there be free 
thought, free speech, and a free press; and how can the people think, speak, 
and print freely, if the proper subjects for such action are concealed from their 
yiew ? To make a popular government possible, that government must be di- 
rected by popular opinion, intelligently formed upon the subjects of its action, 
and not by chance-sentiment or impromptu emotions. In the one case, law is 
a rule prescribed by the supreme authority in a State, and government becomes 
systematic and regular; in the other, law is a mere matter of impulse, and 
government a succession of shifts and contrivances to avoid anarchy. But how 
can the people form an opinion with regard to the subject of their political ac- 
tion, unless the deliberations before them be open and public? 

The framers of our Constitution felt the necessity for publicity, in regard to 
political action, so deeply, as to prescribe, that "each Huuse shall keep a jour- 
nal of its proceedings, and, from time to time, publish the same, excepting such 
parts as may in their judgment require secrecy; and the yeas and nays of the 
members of either House on any question, shall, at the desire of one-fifth of 
those present, be entered upon the journal." This journal was to be kept, and 
published, in order that iha people might understand, and criticise, and regulate 
the proceedings of their servants, who are thus made to act under a constant 
sense of the supervision of the constituent body. Even so small a minority as 
one fifth, were authorised to order the yeas and nays, that each member should 
be held to his individual responsibility, and that tlae weaker party, when it felt 
itself aggrieved by the stronger, might appeal to the great bar of public opin- 
ion, where probably under the influencos of truth, reason, and just feeling, 
judgment would be pronounced by the supreme authority in the State, a judg- 
ment which would always command respect, and, in most instances, carry along 
with it conviction also. Without the practises corresponding with these pro- 
visions in the constitution, representative government would become impossible, 
and justice a thing no longer to be expected. To satisfy ourselves of the 
truth of these conclusions, let us suppose, for an instant, that the American 
Congress, deliberated and acted in secrecy. How long would its representative 
character endure, and for how long afterwards could it probably be reckoned 



amongst the free governments of the earth? All individual responsibility 
would be gone. No man could tell how any member voted. Accordingly as 
the act was popular or unpopular in his district, he would be entitled to the 
presumption of having voted for, or against it. The reasons upon which a mea- 
sure passed could never be given ; the propositions made and rejected, would be 
unknown, and thus a power far more irre.>^ponsible than any ever exercised by 
either ( jEsar or Czar, would be wielded by this many-headed monster. 

J)ut the old fathers of our state left us still more conclusive evidence of their 
estimate of the importance of publicity in political proceedings. They wcve not 
content with exacting it from the re[)reseritative, but enforced the principle on 
the constituent body also. They rccjuired each elector to vote, not by the dead 
letter of the secret ballot, but with the free and manly utterance of the " living 
voice." And thus it is, by wise and ancient prescription, that the Virginiaa 
has ever given his vote in the light of day, and before the world. Preserving 
the "o,s sublime," and presenting a brow as open to the inspection of his neigh- 
bor as his heart is clear to the search of Him who made it, he stands at the polls, 
proudly conscious that he is there the master, not as the man, and willing 
himself to meet all his fair responsibilities to public opinion ; for that act of 
power, he justly expects a return of the same generous confidence from his fel- 
low citizens. 

But, gentlemen, I have shown you the probable effect of this secrecy upon 
the representative. Should we mend matters much by transferring it to the 
constituent body, or rather, to the portion which seeks to rule it? Popular 
government, to be good, must be the result of public opinion, formed with all 
the aids of a free interchange of thought and sentiment, but this interchange 
becomes impossible, when a portion of the people seclude themselves from their 
fellows, and conceal from them their thoughts and purposes. 

Popular government, to be just, must command the assent of a majority, or, 
as some have thought, of even more than a majority; but here is a scheme of 
a secret political organization, by which a minority may rule a majority, with- 
out the least responsibility to public opinion. In the first place, their very mys- 
tery gives them power, and conveys an exaggerated idea of strength to the pub- 
lic mind ; for it is the way of the world, to take " Omiii I'f/notum pro inai/ni/ico." 
Next, their organization and discipline may make a minority an over match for 
the undisciplined majority who act from individual impulse. Lastly, their rules 
of proceeding seem designed to secure this predominance of the minority. 
Whatever may have been the individual differences of opinion within the lodge, 
outside of it they act as one man ; so far as the order itself is concerned, there 
are before the public eye neither majorities nor minorities. The minority must 
give up their opinion ; and thus the order acts by the force of its whole num- 
bers. A measure may have been adopted within the order by a small majority, 
but before the public it carries with it the weight of the whole mass. The or- 
der itself, as compared with the great body of the people, may be in the minor- 
ity, but by its superior organization it may divide and rule them ; and thus a 
measure may be passed, although a large majority of the people are really op- 
posed to it, if its enemies within and without the order are estimated together. 
It is no matter then where you establish this secrecy with regard to political ac- 
tion, the effect is the same: you destroy the just influences of public opinion, 
nay, you make the existence of a public opinion impossible, and thus popular 
government itself, becomes impracticable. ■ — 

Fellow-citizens, we have heretofore felicitated ourselves upon the idea, that 
the power of public opinion in this country was becoming so much greater and 
more enlighted as to relieve our form of government of some of the subjects of 
its hitherto necessary jurisdiction, and to increase its capacity for extending 
over greater areas of territory and larger masses of people. But it seems that 
we are to renounce these long cherished ideas, and a retrograde march is fast 



N 



74 

becoming the order of the day. In the name of Heaven from when?e do these 
BOW lights spring, which are so to uproot the fixed opinions of centuries ? He 
who seeks to destroy the influence of public opinion, or to deprive it of judis- 
diction, strikes at the moving principle of human progress itself, and raises a 
fratricidal hand against the best hopes of his race. It is this influence, which 
has given the greatest impulse to the march of human improvement ; and a3 
the mighty sphere of its jurisdiction enlarges with the growth of time, the gov- 
ernments and institutions of man are called up, one by one, to answer at that 
great bar where reason is free to plead, and truth, when once revealed, pronoun- 
ces its irreversible decrees. 

The Church, the 8tate, and the School all contribute to the stream of thought, 
•which swells the mighty tide of public opinion, and each profits by the modify- 
ing influences of the judgments which are pronounced on their ideas at that bar, 
by way of return. Here, indeed, is the great and conservative tribunal, before 
which all must in turn appear. It can elevate the weak to the level of the 
strong, and the most powerful is strengthened by its aid. Through doors of 
oak, and bolts of iron, it penetrates into the closed council chamber of princes, 
where its voice, if not obeyed, is at least respected and feared. It whispers the 
word of warning into the secret ear of the ruler, and through the long watches of 
the night he tosses in sleepless anxiety to ponder upon its meaning. None are so 
high as to be above its influence, and he must be poor indeed, who is beneath it. 
The weakest and humblest of human beings, if he be strong enough to make his 
moan audible, may summon his oppressor to appear at the bar from whose sen- 
tence he can neither appeal, nor escape, no matter what may be his power or his 
place. It was to public opinion that Martin Luther appealed, when he took is- 
sue with the See of Home, whose power at that day was nearly co-extensive with 
Christendom, and, before that bar, the poor monk became the peer of pontiff's 
and Caesars, and a judgment was pronounced in that cause, which toppled down 
many a place of strength, in which human authority had dreamed itself to be 
secure for centuries yet to come. It was to public opinion that John Locke 
appealed, when, stripped of his living and fellowship for opinion's sake, by the 
cruel edict of an arbitrary prince, he was sent forth, a wanderer upon the world, 
a houseless and homeless man, and, as was vainly supposed, crushed alike ia 
fortune and aspiration. But his proud spirit refused to be down, and he spoke 
the great work in his essay in favor of religious toleration, which could no more 
be hushed, or silenced, until the test acts, and persecuting ordinances of his na- 
tive land had fallen before it, and the great doctrine of liberty of conscience had 
been established, wherever his own English was the vernacular tongue. 

A poor Scotch philosopher, whose views when first published, would have 
been scouted upon "change," now exercises, through the force of public opin- 
ion, a larger influence over the laws which regulate the trade of the world, than 
all the merchant princes and statesmen of his day. Dynasties which have 
withstood the destroying efforts of a Charles the Great, a Tureuue, or a Marl- 
borough, and defied the arts of their political, or strategic skill have fallen be- 
fore the breath of public opinion, when put into motion by some poor scholar or 
unheeded philosopher, who spoke from the narrow precincts of his neglected 
cell, or dreary garret. The ideas of Luther and Locke, and perhaps of llous- 
seau, have, through the force of public opinion, written more changes upon the 
face of human institutions and governments, than the arts or the arms of the 
statesmen and the generals of whom I have just spoken. This jurisdiction of 
the only earthly tribunal, where the strong and the weak must meet upon equal 
terms, where reason is free to speak, and truth alone is powerful, is that of all 
others, which this new party, by some strange perversity of opinion, would seek 
to destroy. What a sin against human progress, what an outrage upon the 
best hopes of man for social and political improvement ! But why should this 
party so fear public opinion, unless they believed that it would pronounce against 



75 

them ? If they supposed the contrary, would they not seek its mighty aid by 
prockimiug their purposes to the world ? There can be but two motives for 
concealing their action upon political affnirs, which concern the welfare of all, 
and these are either the fear of public opinion, or a distrust of the people. 
Is this a country where we can afford to encourage a party wliich acts upon 
such ideas ? But, fellow-citizens, there is another reason special to ourselves 
for regarding secret political associations as mischievous and dangerous. 

Mr. Calhoun used to say, that after all, the political issues in every country 
grew out of the contests of two parties, which belong to all organized humaa 
societies — the one, he called the " tax consuming party," and the other, the 
" tax paying party." The tax consumers are those who receive more money 
from tiiO Treasury, in the shape of patronage, than they contribute to it in the 
payment of public dues. They look, therefore, to the government for the 
means of support, and vote, not as citizens seeking moral benefits, but as indi- 
viduals in pursuit of personal interests and pecuniary gain. The tax paying 
party are those who look to government for political good only, and contribute 
more in money to the Treasury than they receive in return. If the former 
obtains the chief power in the State, then, sooner or later, there must be an end 
to free and popular government. The very ends of their organization require 
them first to increase the taxes as much as possible, in order to swell the fund 
■which is to be converted to their own uses ; and next, to appropriate this mo- 
ney unequally, that they may secure themselves the lion's share. In such 
hands, government is administered for the personal benefit alone, of those who 
manage it, and not for those for whom it was made, if its original form was 
popular — a species of tyranny which no people have ever long tolerated, when 
there were so many to be served. In the downward progress of free institu- 
tions, when their doctrine takes this direction, the first symptom is the appear- 
ance of factious which look not to the general good of society, but to the par- 
ticular interests of themselves. Headed by such men as Sylla and Marius, 
cruel oppression and bloody proscription become the order of the day, until the 
people, weary of their sufferings, seek protection from them all under a Cassar, 
preferring the "dead level of an Oriental despotism," to the unequal exactions 
and diversified tyranny of this many-headed monster. Now, in this country, 
the tem])tutions and facilities for the formation of such a party, are so great as 
to make its appearance a thing to be feared and guarded against. The fund 
which constitutes the object of plunder is already great and daily growing to be 
enormous. Furty or fifty millions of annual expenditure, soon to be increased, 
probably, as our country grows and enlarges, to sixty or seventy millions, con- 
stitutes a fund which holds out a great temptation to those who may be dis- 
posed to struggle for it as prize money. The facilities too, for forming such a 
party are by no means small. It may be a combination of two particular inte- 
rests, to live upon exactions from a third. Such was believed, by some, to be 
the effect of the old American system, which united the manufacturing and in- 
ternal improvement interests against the agricultural. Or the combination may 
consist of two sections against a third. If the taxes are raised and expended 
unequally, the majority, who control the government, may be interested in 
swelling the public resources, whose burden falls on a part and whose benefits 
are mainly appropriated to themselves. Last and worst, the day may arrive x 
when a mere combination of oflice-holders, by means of their numbers and su- \ 
perior organization, may be strong enough to administer the government for 
their own particular benefit. Any, or all of these events, which are possible, 
would destroy our popular institutions. What has been our protection against 
this danger heretofore ? It has consisted in the publicity of political proceed- 
ings. Parties were forced to divide upon principles — principles which looked, 
or professed to look, to the good of the whole, and not of the part. Political 
issues were thus forced to be broadly taken, and argued upon general and gene- . 



76 

rous views. The one or the other party was wrong, of course, but still the 
country could not be much injured by either ; because, if the good of tie whole 
was really the object of pursuit, their measures, when adopted by the govern- 
ment, would be abandoned, if proved to be injurious. The people, too, are 
thus saved, as far as it is possible to save them, from the selfish combinations of 
which I have been speaking. So long a» political action is public, they observe 
the fact, if men of opposite political opinion are suddenly found voting togeth- 
er, and suspecting selfi.sh views, by a sort of instinct of self-preservation, they 
are sure to strike at the combination. But, destroy all this, convert the public 
meeting into the secret association for political purposes, and what is to save us 
from the domination of such a party as that which I have been describing? 
There is the strongest temptatiim for such action, and you remove the most effi- 
cient restraint. The " fear of Hell," says the poet, 

" Is the hangman's whip, 

To hold the wretch in order." 

The same conservative influence is exorcised by the fear of the retributive jus- 
tice administered by public opiuion. Within the secret conclave of this associ- 
ation, there can be no such fear to restrain. The action of an individual and 
the very fact of his membership, are concealed. Individually, he is responsible 
to the world for nothing. Before the puble, there is no such thing as individ- 
ual responsibility, or opinion, within the whole hosts of the Order. All must obey 
the edict, all must vindicate the opinion, when once it is determined upon, 
Plere the disappointed office seeker may hide his blushes under the shades of 
secrecy and of night, as he drives the perfect bargain, by which his principles 
are to be bartered away for renewed hopes of the prize, which he failed to seize 
before. Here, too, combinations for the most sefish and dangerous purposes 
may be formed, without the fear of punishment or detection. If they do nob 
exist now, will any man say that they may not be soon expected, with such 
temptations and facilities for their formation ? Permit me, fellow citizens, to 
expose the dangers of such an association, by an illustration, which I think 
ought to strike every one. We have seen that the action of the last Congress 
upon the Nebraska bill, severed the Whig party North and South. For the re- 
peal of the Missouri restriction, not one vote was given by a Northern Whig. 
The Southern Whigs very properly, refused to act as a party with such confed- 
erates. If there are men amongst them, or elsewhere in the South, who pre- 
fer office to the peace and safeCy of their States, and who, feeling that the auti- 
Blavery sentiment is predominant in the free States, which constitute the majo- 
rity in the government, would be willing to unite with them in order to secure 
their own personal interests, still, they would not dare to seek such an alliance, 
whilst political action is open and public. 

Such a man would b« afraid to do so ; he would fear the public opinion of 
the South, the censures of nearly all. Whig and Democrat, and the scorn of 
his fellow-citizens, who would regard him as a renegade and traitor. But adopt 
this contrivance of a secret political association, and how easy may it be for 
such persons to effect their purposes. The union may be formed, and yet none 
can know it, except those who are bound to vindicate it. If this association 
fails in its objects, the world is none the worse for it ; if it succeeds, they win 
the golden prizes of office and power, for which they are willing to risk much 
more perhaps; than they have put in peril. Then, upon this dangerous question 
of slavery, the South would lose one of its great defences, and lose the power 
to enforce the united action of her sons. What, after all, has been our chief 
security in the fierce agitation of this question ? Has it not been in the timely 
warning which was given us, by the publicity of political proceedings ? If a 
dangerous anti-slavery agitation, sprang up at the North, it was open and pub- 



77 

He. The conservative press of the country took the matter in hand, and an 
opportunity was given for oxchiinging sentiment between the different sections ; 
the consequences of such measures could be pointed out, and thus, even in the 
most excited states of the public mind, an opportunity was afforded for the so- 
ber second thought of the people to come to the rescue. But now, large mas- 
ses may be secretly committed to the most dangerous opinions, and the men 
may be selected to carry them out, without time for previous warning, or expos- 
tulation, so that opposing sections may be suddenly brought into the presence 
of each other, and precipitated upon the most dangerous issues, when retreat is 
dj^eult, and compromise becomes impossible. 

/ But, fellow-citizens, the dangers of these secret associations do not end here. 
vlf this one succeeds, others must follow. In self-defence, those who do not be- 
long to this order, will use the same means by which it has acquired power; 
and the open political action for which this country has been distinguished, will 
be converted in a warfare of secret associations. Instead of the open, manly, 
8tand-up mode of fighting, so characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon and Anglo- 
American race, we shall substitute the dark intrigue and stiletto warfare of the 
Italian. That such a change in our political habits would have the effect of 
transforming the moral character of our people, is not to be doubted. Is there 
a man present, who would desire to see such transformation ? Fellow citizens, 
let me beg you to beware of these secret political associations. Beware of the 
mysterious blandishments of this new seducer. It is said to be but the first step 
that costs. You may be tampering with a danger of whose whole character you 
are little aware. / 

Far up on the Missouri, near to Fort Benton, upon a high cliff, which com- 
mands an extensive view of the surrounding country, it is said, that a Bhickfoot 
Indian Chief directed himself to be buried on horseback, with his face turned 
down the stream, to look out, as he said, for the white man, the destroyer of 
Lis race, when he should come up the river. If you would look out for the 
jdestroyer of your free institutions, and popular form of government, fix your 
eye upon the door of the secret political association; — from that door, the worst 
enemy of all, will come. 

But I have not told the whole story against this new Order. As I said be- 
fore, they have avowed opinions upon certain subjects, which, in my judgment 
are highly dangerous and mischievous. They propose to destroy the liberty of 
flonscience itself, by proscribing the members of the Roman Catholic roli<non 
from all offices, whether high or low. Thus not only persecuting these men 
for opinion sake, but introducing a religious test, as a qualification for office. 
I know it is said, that this proscription from office is no persecution, because it 
is not accompanied by corporal suffercnce ; but is there not moral degradation 
and does not that often carry with it a far keener pang to the sensitive spirit than 
the most severe physical punishment ? You say that the Roman Catholic i.? 
unworthy to enjoy the full privileges of a citizen, or to fill the meanest ojfiee • 
that men of all other religions and sects, Mahomedans, Buddhists, even Infidels 
and Atheists, may bo capable of holding office, but he is incapable, because he 
eannot be trusted as being loyal and patriotic ; you fix upon his brow the brand 
of political inferiority, and, after wounding him thus in the point of honor, you 
«ay he has suffered no punishment. Is not such moral isolation to a noble and 
aensitive mind, more than bodily incarceration sometimes ? 

" Stone walls do not a prison make. 
Nor iron bars a cage." 

You may confine a man's body, and if he enjoys the respect and kindly feeli 
ings of hig race, who look to him as a martyr in a noble cause, he bears up 
cheerfully under it all ; but not so, if you cxaludo him from tuo palo of hum^i 



78 

sympathy, and expose him to public insult and moral isolation in the midst of 
his kind. It is vain to say, that this is no punishment for opinion sake. In 
a country like this, where office has heretofore been open to all, the exclusion 
would be more keenly felt, than in others, where the privilege was not so ex- 
tensive. But our glorious old Bill of Rights provided " that religion, or the 
duty we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed 
only by reason and conscience, not by force or violence ; and therefore all men 
are entitled to a free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of con- 
science, and that it is the mutual duty of all to practise Cbristian forbearance, 
love, and charity, towards each other." The act for the establishment of rcli- 
gi'ius freedom, passed by Virginia in 178G, and upon which Mr. Jefferson pri- 
ded himself so much as to reckon it, along with the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence, amongst the things for which he ought to be remembered by posterity, 
declared, " that no man shall be compelled to frequent, or support, any reli- 
gious worship, place or ministry whatever, nor shall he be enforcei, restrained, 
molested, or burdened in his body, or goods, nor shall he otherwise suffer on ac- 
count of his religious opinion or belief; but that all men shall be free to 
profess, and by argument to maintain their opinions in matters of religion ; and 
that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities." 
Such were the ideas of the old fathers of our State, and maj'* the day never 
come when they shall be treated as obsolete ! 

?■ But the Federal Constitution has also something to say upon this subject. 
It expressly declares, " that no religious test shall ever be required as a quali- 
fication to any office, or public trust, under the Iinited States." Now, this was 
manifestly a provision in favor of religious freedom, and it was intended to se- 
cure the reality, and not the idea, the thing, and not the name, the substance, 
and not the shadow. 

The thing designed to be secured, was that the offices should be thrown open 
to persons of all religious persuasions, and that no man's opinion on that sub- 
ject should incapacitate him for that privilege. Now, we obey this injunction, 
of the Constitution in the letter, when we forbear to pass a law establishing 
such tests ; but do we not violate its spirit if we transfer the deed from the 
representative to the constituent body, and bind this last by vows and pledges, 
to vote for no man for office who is himself a Catholic, or who would appoint 
members of that religion to office ? We may preserve the shadow of the consti- 
tutional provision, but do we not sacrifice the substance, by such an evasion ? or, 
will it be maintained, that the Constitution binds us only as members of the 
government, and not as individual citizens ? Surely this is a poor view of such 
a question. We obey the Constitution not as a matter of compulsion, but of 
choice; not as a thing forced upon us, but because we love it; because we 
concur in its principles, and sympathise in its spirit. It is the compact of go- 
vernment to which we have agreed, and we are bound not only in our public, 
but also our private capacities, to execute it in its spirit and truth. The Con- 
stitution of the United States, in reference to its objects, may be said to con- 
sist of three portions; first, it establishes the machinery of government; next, 
it distributes the moving power amongst the parts of the machinery; and, 
thirdly, it provides certain securities for the rights of States, and of individuals. 
Now, these last are of the very essence of the compact, and constitute the con- 
ditions upon which it was formed. All the parties, therefore, who enjoy the 
benefits of the compact, are bound to carry out the stipulations, whose execu- 
tion may depend upon their agency. How often have we complained of those 
Northern States, which evade the obligation in regard to foreign slaves, and, 
without violating the letter of the Constitution, defeat the spirit of its provis- 
ions by interposing obstacles in the way of the recovery of such fugitives ? We 
have said, justly, as it seems to me, that when they take the benefit of all the 
provisions of the Constitution which interest them, they are bound to carry out 



79 

in good fuith those which concern the other parties to the compact ; their ob- 
ligation is to carry out the object of that provision in its spirit, not merely to 
abstain from violating its letter. Now, may not the same be said of the pro- 
visions of the Constitution in regard to religious freedom ? Were they not also 
of the essence of the compact? Could the Federal Constitution have been rat- 
ified in Virginia, if it had been supposed to sanction the idea of the establish- 
ment of religious tests, as a qualitication for office. As it is, it was received 
with fierce opposition by many of our most distinguished statesmen ; but what 
would have been said if it had contained an authority for suc!i religious tests as 
are now proposed as qualilications for office ? James Madison was its great ad- 
vocate and defender, as it now stands ; but, iu the contingency of which I 
speak, what would he have said of it, distinguished as he was for lar^e and 
generous sentiments on the subject of human liberty? And what would old 
George Mason have said, the author of the declaration in favor of religious 
freedom, in our Bill of llights ? And, above all, what would he have said, 
who once exclaimed, " Give me liberty, or give me death," when it was sup- 
posed that life and property were imperilled by such a declaration ! 

Fellow-citizens, I care not in what capacity it be, whether as representatives 
or constituents, that we violate the spirit and defeat the objects of the Consti- 
tution ; in either case, we sap and mine the foundations of our government, and 
disregard our plainest obligations as citizens. 

But I object to this proscription of Catholics, on account of their religious 
opinions, for other reasons, which are yet to be given. It is undoing the work 
of Martin Luther; it is unprotestantizing Protestantism itself, and returning 
to the practices of the darkest ages of religious bigotry and persecution. 

What was the great object of Luther's mission ? — Was it not to establish the 
right of private judgment in matters of conscience? And what was the great 
work of Protestantism ? Was it not to make good that right and that duty of 
individuals, and to enter a solemn protest against any human authority, whether 
of bishops, churches, or governments, to overrule or destroy it? And yet there 
are men, claiming to be good Protestants, who propose to punish, by proscription 
from office, all persons whose private judgments lead them to the adoption of 
the Catholic faith. I have shown how such a proscription may be a punishment 
of the worst sort ; but I go farther, and say that the idea upon which this is 
justified, if carried out to its logica consequences, must lead us to far greater 
lengths. In short, there is no middle ground between absolute and perfect tol- 
eration on the one hand, or positive persecution on the other. If the Catholics 
are unfit to hold any office, however small, on account of their faith, they are 
unfit to vote; for it requires as much patriotic feeling and sound judgment to 
do the one as the other. If, then, they are incompetent to the discharf^e of the 
first duties of citizenship, and are to be treated as aliens, they become danfcrous 
members of the society which thus distrusts them : and the plainest dictates of 
prudence would seem to require their removal. Louis XIV. therefore, who re- 
voked the edict of Nantes, and drove so many of his Huguenot subjects to bear 
their industry and their arts to Germany, Holland, England, and even to this 
country, did but carry out the principles upon which it is now proposed to act, 
to its inevitable and logical consequences. As I said before, there can be no 
middle ground, no debatable land, between positive prohibition and perfect tol- 
eration. If the right of private judgment in matters of conscience, exists afe 
all, it is absolute and independent of all human authority. Such is the result 
of the great principle established by Luther, and such the mighty work of Pro- 
testant reform. It is now a little more than three centuries, since the city of 
Worms presented one of the most remarkable scenes which has ever appeared 
in the course of human aS'airs. The Emperor Charles, the German Cassar, had 
convened there a diet of princely dignitaries. The Archduke, Electors, Laud- 
graves, Margraves, civil and ecclesiastical Princes, Counts of the Empire and 



80 

^^— ■ 

belted Knights were there, numbcrinfj, in all, more than two hundred persons 
of regal, or serai-regal estate. That iJiet was assembled to consider the case of 
a poor monk of Wittemburg, who had made an issue with the See of Home, 
upon nothing less than the ri-ht of private judgment in matters of conscience, 
and dared to take an appeal to public opinion for its judgment, upon that greufc 
controversy. So poor was that monk, that he depended upon the charity of one 
Prince for the money which was to bear his expenses to Worms, and upon that 
of another, for the very clothing which he wore; he had neither official place, 
nor dignity, nor was there one man whose services he could, as a matter of right, 
command ; but he had spoken the word at which whole nations must pause to 
listen. It was in vain tliat his friends, and even the more generous of his ene- 
mies, dissuaded him from appearing before that Diet. They said, that the Ger- 
man CsBsar, at that day in point of temporal power the foremost man in all the 
world, was his bitter and implacable foe; that his Spanish cavaliers, at that day 
the truest representatives of Christian chivalry, were riding abouk the streets 
upon their mules, and swearing vengeance against the monk and his friends ; 
that the Church of Rome, whose ecclesiastical censures then fulminated over 
nearly the whole of Christendom, would be there with its hostile array of learn- 
ing and power, and that potentates, ecclesiastical and civil, would also be there, 
thirsting and crying aloud for his blood. But he said he would go, if thero 
were as many devils to meet him in Worms, as thero were tiles upon the houses. 
And he did go, he did appear before that Ccesar, whose frown indeed was terri- 
ble, before that Church exulting in its pride of strength, and before tlioss 
princes who had fixed an evil eye upon him ; his face was pale, but with study 
and not with fear; his body so emaciated with vigils and labor that its every 
bone could be detected by the least observant eye; in human form, he was not 
above the average stature, but as a representative man, the representative of ths 
mightiest issue which it had ever fallen to mortal lot to make, he towered in 
moral majesty to the height of that great argument, by which he was to sustain 
it. The lire of his eye quenched not in the presence of imperial majesty itself, 
the tones of his voice rung clear and true as the tempered steel, and he faltered 
not Hs he responded to the ensnaring questions of the adversary; his heart 
quailed not before that great array of hostile power. He spoke, and princes, 
catching the infection of his noble zeal, crowded about him in the council-cham- 
ber, and said to him, " Speak, speak out like a man," fear not them who can 
kill the body, but cannot harm the soul ; wild, warlike soldier.? too, were won 
by the gallant bearing of the lion-hearted priest. " Monk," said a celebrated 
€apt;un of the times, " take heed to your steps, you are treading a path far moro 
dangerous than any that the rest of us have ever pursued; but if you are in tho' 
fight road, God will not abandon you." lie did speak out, with a fearlessness 
which not the bravest of those princes could themselves have exhibited, .and he 
did pursue his path v*ith faith far greater than the trust of the old captain, that 
being in the right road, God would not abandon him. Threats could not appal 
nor blandishments seduce him, until at last, run out by his perseverance, the 
Catholic Bishop of Treves said unto him, "Then, tell us, yourself, what we 
ought to do to settle this controversy." — " I must reply to you," said Luther, 
"in tho words of Gamalial, ' let the thing alone; for if this work be of men it 
will come to nought, but if it be of God, you cannot overthrow it.' " Jjravo 
words these of tho old Jewish Doctor of Laws, fit to be spoken by him, and fit 
to be repeated by Luther. Well might St. Paul be proud to have been bred at 
the feet of such a man ; well did this judgment deserve to be recorded on the 
imperishable page of Holy Writ, to endure when the reports and decrees of nil 
other lawyers shall have passed away and been fcirgotten ! They were the first 
great words ever spoken in favor of religious freedom, spoken by Gamalial, to 
pave thy apostles from Jewish persecution, repeated by Luther to defend him- 
»elf against Catholic persecution, and now let the Catholics, in their turn, use 
them to protect themselves againsfi Protestant persecution. 



81 

But, fellow citizens, I have spoken of this issue in regard to Ibo right of pri- 
vate judgment in matters of conscience, as being the most important which it 
has ever fallen to mortal lot to make. Iluman history and experience bear me 
out in that assertion. For this principle has proved to be the foundation stone 
of the fabric, not merely of religious, but of civil liberty also. It was a declar- 
ation in favor of individual freedom. The individual mind burst loose from the 
bonds of human authority, and aroused itself from the slumber of ages. A 
new moving principle within the mind itself, was thus allowed full room for 
play, and eacb individual intellect becoming instinct with motion, and quicken- 
ing into a higher life, human energy seemed to receive a new impulse, and de- 
veloped itself in greater activity, and under more varied forms, than had ever 
characterized it before. Our race sprung forward as with a bound, in its march 
of improvement, and may be said to have achieved more of progress in the last 
three centuries, under the iuflucnce of this mighty reformation, than it had ac- 
complished through the whole period of its authentic history ; which preceded 
the Christian era. And yet, it is this great work of Luther, which we are now 
called upon to undo. We are to destroy the right of private judgment in mat- 
ters of conscience, and persecute Catholics for their religious opinion's sake. I 
As I have said, more than once, upon this subject, there is no half-way house, / 
no middle ground. , 

It may be said, I know, that the early Protestants did not extend their own 
principles so far; that they themselves kindled the fire of religious persecution. 
But even the discoverers of great principles do not altvays carry them out to 
their logical consequences. The progress of Truth may be certain, but its pace 
is slow, and yet great principles will work out their ultimate results. John 
Milton had a glimpse of the truth, that absolute toleration must be the irresis- 
tible result of the great principle of Protestant reform, when he said: " Give 
me the liberty to know, to utter, and argue freely, according to conscience, 
above all liberties." John Locke took in the -whole truth, and proclaimed it in 
his celebrated essay, and the old fathers of our Stjite, were the disciples of his 
political school. By their bill of rights, and their celebrated act upon that 
subject, they did establish, as they supposed, a perfect religious freedom. Has 
cot this experiment worked well so far, both for Church and State? Have they 
not happily grown side by side in haniioay, and not in opposition to each other ? 
Have we experienced any mischief from this absolute toleration of religious 
opiiiion ? Have we been injured by the fact, that Catholics could vote, and 
hold offices amongst us ? Have not these Catholics divided amongst the great 
parties of the country, and voted upon political, rather than religious tests ? 
Do Whigs complain that too many of them vote with the Democrats ? This is 
not more a Catholic than a Protestant sin, becau.se more Protestants than Cath- 
olics vote with that party ? Do the Democrats complain that too many of thcEQ- 
vote with the Whigs? Again, it may be replied, that there are more Protes- 
tants than Catholics who vote with that party. But can there be any political 
danger from allowing men of all religious persuasions to vote? By doing so, 
you certainly widen the basis upon which your government stands, and increase 
the number of those who bound to it by the ties of sympathy and interest. 
Where can be the danger, so long as political proceedings are open and public, 
and representative and constituent can question each other face to face ? If a 
representative is with you on political tests, does it matter, so far as the politi- 
cian is concerned, what are his opinions upon other subjects? If he is with 
you on the subjects of trade, currency, and the principles of constitutional con- 
struction, when they are in issue, does it matter that he differs from you on the 
doctrine of transubstantiation ? Will not a Catholic who agrees with you on 
all the political issues, and differs from you in religion, make you a better leg- 
islative representative than a Protestant who agrees with you in religion, but 
differs from you on all matters of political principle ? Is it not entirely in our 
6 



82 

power to ascertain liow tLey stand, when tried by tbeir political tests, so long 
as political action is open and public ? If there be danger from such a tolera- 
tion, it can only exist when political deliberations and actions are veiled iu 
secrecy. I know that an attempt has been made to except the Catholic from 
the operation of the great principle of religious toleration, by maintaining that 
he is proscribed for civil, rather than religious reasons, because he is said to 
acknowledge the supremacy of the Church over the State, in temporal matters. 

Fellow citizens, such a distinction does not in truth exist. Tiie Catholic of 
the present day, no more admits the supremacy of the Church in temporal 
matters than the Protestant; their difference is in regard to spiritual concerns. 
The Protestant maintains the right of private judgment in matters of eon- 
science; the Catholic believes, that in spiritual affairs the decisions of the 
Church ought to overrule the individual judgment. But Protestants and Cath- 
olics, all Christian churches and individuals, believe that the allegiance which 
they owe to Clod is higher than any obligation to man; and that in a conflict 
between human and divine laws, you must serve God rather than man. 

But how can such an opinion interfere with the capacity of a citizen to dis- 
charge his political duties, unless the civil government undertakes to legislate 
upon religious subjects, and to draw spiritual matters under a temporal jurisdic- 
tion, instead of keeping them apart, as was ordered by Christ, when he said, 
" Ptendcr unto Ca3sar the things that are Cresar's, and unto God the things that 
are God's," and as has been our practice heretofore in the administration of 
civil affairs ? 

But suppose we once commence with this work of proscribing Catholics for 
their religious opinions — where is it to end? With the Catholics? Trust not 
so vain a delusion. The jealousy of religious bigotry is a thing which growa 
with what it feeds upon. Next we shall hear that the Quaker is to be proscribed 
for civil rather than religious reasons : he will not defend his country in time 
of war. Then there is much to criticise in the government of this Church, and 
grave objections to that of another. One is arbitrary, and of a temper iinsuited 
to free institutions; another is aristocratic, and unfitted to the genius of a dem- 
ocratic people. Some, too, may be suspected of an effort to engross the political 
offices and power of the country, and appropriate them to their own members. 
If they proscribe others, they must themselves be proscribed ; and in this new 
era of secret political association, there is room, given for every suspicion, and 
opportunities are afforded for the most dangerous combinations. Who does not 
know the peculiar susceptibilities of sectarian jealousy ? Who can fail to see 
the dangers of the warfare which would thus spring up amongst the different 
Christian sects ? And when men become weary of the agitation of such con- 
tests, in which each set of religious opinions is in turn proscribed, will they not 
gay at last to the government, " Tell us what to believe ; establish your church ; 
relieve us from this state of uncertainty, and let each man enjoy once more in 
peace the shade of his own vine and fig tree." 

It seems to me, far better to pursue the present practice ; tolerate all religions, 
and have each church free to pursue its mission in its own way, and to select 
the most appropriate field for its labors. If you then have more churches, you 
have more Christians also, and if there must be a human tribunal to set upon 
their differences, let it be that of public opinion. Here is a jurisdiction, which 
can take charge of matters far too delicate for the positive regulation of govern- 
ment. Questions of morals, of honor, of social and personal propriety, which 
involve distinctions far too nice, and shades of coloring far too delicate to be 
defined by positive law, may be satisfactorily adjusted here. Here, too, is a 
•field of battle where none can be injured, where Reason furnishes the only 
weapons, and Truth must be the gainer, no matter who comes out victor in the 
.conteet. Oa this side we know there will be peace and safety, on the other 
there must be danger and discord. And we are to run all this ri^^k, for what ? 



83 

Because, you say, there is a probsibility that the interests of the church mny^^ 
cksh with those of the State, and that, in such a case, the American Catholic 
might vote not according to his duties as a citizen, but to his feelings as a 
ehurchman. Take your own supposition, this is but a remote possibility, a case 
of mere chance; but if you proscribe the Catholic for his religion, you make 
that danger certain, of which there was but a chance before. _ You put him 
under the ban j you refuse him the equal privileges of a citizen, and stamp 
upon him the brand of inferiority. His first object then is to remove that 
stigma. He no longer acts with the great parties of the country, according to 
his°opinion3 upon political issues which concern all, but his first object is to 
remove the oppression under which he labors, and he feels justified in voting in 
any manner to secure that end. The very thing which you dread will assuredly 
come to pass, and, through your own agency, he will vote not as an American 
citizen, but as a Catholic ; he will no longer come forward, as now, to give your 
government a ready and cheerful support ; that government is no longer bound 
to him by the ties of interest and sympathy, if it proscribes and oppresses him. 
He will become indifferent, and perhaps hostile to the government, which has 
treated him as an alien and as a member of an inferior cast of society.^ Why 
estrange one who is so valuable as a friend, and convert him, perhaps, into an 
enemy ? 

But, fellow-citizens, I went a little too far, when I said, it was proposed to 
proscribe Catholics from all ofiices in this country. There are some offices, 
which the sons and daughters of that Church are still considered competent to 
discharge. I mean the offices of Christian charity, of ministration to the sick. 
The sister of charity may enter yonder pest-house, from whose dread portals 
the bravest and strongest man quails and shrinks ; she may breathe there the 
breath of the pestilence which walks abroad, in that uiant^ion of misery, in or- 
der to minister to disease where it is most loathsome, and to relieve suffering 
■where it is most helpless. There, too, the tones of her voice may be heard 
mingling with the last accents of human despair, to soothe the fainting soul, 
as siie points through the gloom of the dark valley of the shadow of death to 
the Cross of Christ, which stands traasfigtired in celestial light, to bridge the 
way from Earth to Heaven ; and when cholera or yellow fever invades your 
cities, the Catholic Priest may refuse to take refuge in flight, holding the place 
of the true Soldier of the Gross, to be by the sick man's bed, even though death 
pervades the air, because he may there tender the ministrations of his holy of-, 
fice to those who need them most. But, if som.e of the objects of their care 
should arise from the bed, which, but for them, would have been the bed of 
death, and should any such say to them, if he be a Protestant, " I am going 
forth to proscribe your Church, to put you under the ban, to declare you un- 
worthy of the common privilege of citizens, and to degrade you as a caste, be- 
cause I am afraid that you, poor priest, and you, gentle sister, will rob me of 
my rights and deprive me of my liberties ?" what would they say to such an 
address as this ? They might not utter the thought, bat would it not be the 
feeling of the least rebellious nature, if it were still human to say, " let him go, 
like the Pharisee of old, enjoying his greetings in the market place, and his 
chief place at the feasts, and thank his God that he is not a sinner as this pub- 
lican." But, what would you say, fellow-citizens, to such a sentiruent, if it 
were uttered in your presence ? You would say that it was a sentiment unfit to 
be either entertained or expressed. 

But for what is it that I am pleading, here in Virginia, before an intelligent 
audience of her sons, and in the year of our Lord, 1855 ? For Religious Free- 
dom, for Liberty of conscience. I can scarcely realize the idea, I am almost 
ashamed to confess it, and yet it is even so. If any man bad foretold to me, 
two years ago, that such an heresy could be exhumed from the dead, and thac 
the breath of life could be bo breathed into it as to give it vitality enough to 



V 



84 

become a living issue upon the soil of the Old Dominion, I should have laughed 
to scorn the prophet and his prophecy. And here is a thing, they tell me, to 
be feared; and certainly a thing formidable enough to be met. "JS^uIIa vcsiujia 
retrorsum." — " Let here be no no steps backvrards," said John Hampden ; a 
noble maxim certainly as applied to the march of human liberty. Here, 
though, is not a step backwards, bat a retrograde march of centuries, and from 
light into that darkness again out of which we had once emerged with so much 
pain and difficulty. If a people so enlightened, as I had fondly believed ours 
to be, can be induced to make such a retrograde march as this, I shall begin to 
lose my faith in human progress, and fear that the political reformer rolls the 
otone of Sisyphus, which can never reach the expected goal. But why 
does this new party select the Catholic Church as the particular object of its 
proscriptions ? They certainly seem to have begged, borrowed, or in some other 
way obtained some leading ideas from that Church, and which, in my opinion, 
constitute its most objectionable features. Old John Milton somewhere re- 
proaches his Protestant brethren for certain persecuting practices, and says they 
have fallen into the " most Popish of Papist errors. '^ I think the same may 
be said of this Know-Nothing party. Do they object to the secret Inquisition 
of that Church, which inquires into spiritual oifences ? — have thetj not a secret 
inquisition, which inquires into political offences? Does it not sit upon your 
character and niine, try us when we cannot be heard, condemn us when we had 
not been arraigned, and execute its sentence without serving upon the victim a 
notice of its existence? 

The old Vehmic tribunal so terrible for its secret inquisition and visitations, 
used to take care, at least, that the bowl and the cord should be laid by somo 
invisible hand at the bedside of the victim, to give him warning when he awoko 
of the fate that awaited him. But here is an inquiriition whose sentences are 
executed without even that premonition. Do the Know Nothings object that 
the Catholics deny the right of private judgment in matters of conscience ? 
Surely, they do the same thing with regard to the Catholic, when they proscribe 
and persecute him on account of his religious opinions. They refuse to allow 
him to worship God according to his own conscience, except under such pains 
and penalties as they choose to prescribe. Do they object to the Catholics as 
members of a political community because they believe in the supremacy of the 
church in spiritual matters? Why, then, do they declare a far more dangerous 
doctrine, and assert the supremacy of their council in matters temporal and po- 
litical ? A man may believe in the spiritual supremacy of a church, and yet 
discharge his political duties, according to his individual conscience and convic- 
tion ; but he who admits the political supremacy of a council, cannot perform 
bis duties as a citizen, according to his own judgment and conscience. When 
the edict is once pronounced by the council, it can neither be disputed nor dis- 
obeyed by the members. After this, there must be neither majorities nor mi- 
norities in the Order; but all must move, act and speak together, as if with 
©ne will. That greatest of all liberties — as Milton called it — the liberty to 
know, to argue, and to utter freely according to conscience, is not one of their 
privileges. With wiiat face, then, c:m a party, holding such doctrines as these, 
proscribe men for entertaining far less dangerous opinions ? What the practi- 
ces of these Know-Nothings may be with regard to confession and absolution, 
I know not, but it is very clear, that if the power to command the moral action 
of individuals exist, the power to absolve them from the consequences of sin 
ought to go along with it. 

But this party is not content with proscribing Catholics, and treating them as 
aliens in the bosom of American society. There are about 2,200,000 foreigners 
amongst us, and these, too, are to be considered as incapable of holding ofSee 
■under the government. Not only are they to be forever disqualified for office, 
but hereafter the term of probation for naturalization is to be so lengthened 



85 

as to malve the law itself illusory. It is to be observed, that what is proposed 
to be done, will not diminish much the number of emigrants who hereafter will 
come to our shores, nor was it probably intended, when this Order originated, 
that such an effect should be produced, for reasons which I will presently give. 
The proposed party will deteriorate the quality of the emigration ; it will shut 
out men of fortune and education, because they prefer our institutions and de- 
sire to incorporate themselves into the great body of American society, to share 
its privileges and partake of its destiny ; it will cut oif those, too, who cme 
here from choice, not from any desire or expectation of office, but who would 
be unwilling to live where they could never be capable of holding it. But all 
those who move from necessity, for the means of subsistence, must still come, 
for even the Know Nothings will give them leave to toil. Then these consti- 
tute the great mass of foreign emigrants that come to our shores. The ques- 
tion, then, is, as to their treatment after they reach here. Shall they be denied 
all political franchises ? Shall they be treated as aliens in our midst, and thus 
made indifferent, or, perhaps, hostile to our government and institutions ? Or, 
shall they be treated as heretofore, by our fathers and ourselves, who have 
sought to bind them to our country by the ties of sympathy and interest, and 
for that purpose have held out a reasonable hope, that a place should be made 
for them in our political society, as soon as they can show by certain evidences, 
that they are fit for it ? 

Here is an immense power in our midst. The question is, how shall it be 
treated ? Shall we bind it to us by the kindly ties of affection, and the still 
stronger bonds of interest, or shall we alienate and estrange it ? That, then, is 
the true issue of principle to which I shall speak. There are minor questions 
of detail, which I have not time now to discuss. In all the great operations of 
society, certain evils are incidental, which must be provided for as they arise, 
not by destroying, but by regulating the system. So, too, the process of assi- 
milating the foreign element into American society, has its incidental evils, 
which may be metas the special cases arise ; for some the police powers of the 
States are ample, and othere may be guarded against by the Federal Government, 
without disturbing the general features of the process itself. \Vhat I maintain 
is, that this new element ought to be assimilated with the great body of Ame- 
rican society, as far as it can be done, and that a place ought to be made for too 
foreigner in our political society, as soon as a reasonable evidence is given of his 
being fit for it. 

In discussing this issue, I may be permitted, I trust, to enter a little into the 
history of the question itself. Ac all times the tide of human emigration seems 
to have been directed by soaic law of nature, which thus provides for that fusion 
and inter-communication of races, which has' been proved to be necessary to the 
general progress of the whole. There is not a great people upon record who 
did not spring from a mixture of races. The Greek, the Roman, the English 
and the French, all sprang from a mixture of stocks. The Jewish were more 
exclusive, but it is also to be remembered that they lost power and empire. 
The emigrations from which all this resulted in ancient times, were forced or 
armed emigrations. The stronger and weaker races, when living side by side, 
owed their proximity to the fact, that the former had brought the laHer to their 
own homes as slaves, or else, seizing the country of the subjugated had settled 
in it as being more desirable than their own. Thus it was, in ancient times, 
that- the necessity for an interchange of the habits, thoughts and characteristic 
ideas of the different races was satisfied. Routes through which the forced emi- 
gration of the African slave was conducted before the Egyptian pyramids were 
built, are, some of them, still used for the same purpose. The irruptions of 
the Goths, the Vandals and Huns, were so many armed immigrations, aad the 
same may be said of the Crusaders. All these seem to have been designed to 
serve some great purpose in the economy of nature, by mingling different races. 



86 

and interchanging amongst all, the ideas and thoughts peculiar to each. The 
discovery of America, which made so many changes in the course of human af- 
fairs, seems also to have presented a new law for the direction of the stream of 
emigration. The great law of trade, the law of demand and supply, now inter- 
vened to impel and regulate it. A wilderness was to be opened, and the field 
was large enough for all who might choose to come. Our forefathers held out 
every inducement to encourage emigration from abroad. Upon this subject the 
policy of Virginia was peculiarly liberal, and lands were given to those who 
would settle amongst us. At the time of the Declaration of Independence, 
it was made a cause of complaint against the Crown, that obstacles had been 
interposed in the way of foreign emigration. After the adoption of the present 
Constitution, and during the administration of Washington, a law was passed 
allowing a foreigner to be naturalized, after a residence of five years. Under 
the Federal Administration of John Adams, the period was extended to fourteen 
years j but the five years term was restored again, when the Republican party 
came in under Mr. Jefferson. Thus it has stood, with no expression of dissat- 
isfaction, until within a few years past, with the single exception, as I believe, 
of the Hartford Convention, which sought to revive the fourteen years term. 

Under this' legislation, the course of emigration has been rapid, and, as was 
generally supposed, until lately, beneficial to the country. The foreigner set- 
tled beside us, to participate in our hopes and cares, to share with us the chan- 
ces of life, and contribute the resources of his mind and body to the growth 
and prosperity of American society, in which, for the tnost part, he felt a com- 
mon interest with ourselves. It was the boast of the Old Ilun, that grass nev- 
er grew after the tread of his horse's hoof; it was not so with the emigrant 
who came here ; he made two blades of grass grow where one grew before, and 
helped to gladden the waste places of nature with all the arts of cultivation and 
civilization. To trace the agency of this foreign clement in the various devel- 
opments of American society, I believe, would be startling enough to those 
■who have not much considered the subject. Certain it is, that our growth 
would have been much less rapid without it. I thinS, too, that an examination 
of the history of this emigration will show, that if nature be left free to pur- 
sue her course, there can be no danger that the foreign will overpower the native 
element in their influences upon our state of society. In looking over a well 
reasoned analysis of the statistics of emigration, as given by our recent census, 
which appeared in one of the foreign periodicals, I met with ,some results for 
which, I confess, I was not prepared. Its general geographical di.'stribution was 
not, in some important respects, such as I had expected to find it ; of the 
2,200,000 foreigners in this country, only about 305,000 are in the slave States, 
la the northwestern free States, less than one third of these emigrants is to 
be found, and of 1,900,000 inhabitants of these States not born within them, 
1,330,000 are native American. As a consequence of all this, it follows that 
most of these foreigners are in the Atlantic nonslaveholding States, amongst 
which New York and JIassachusetts share most hirgely, and nearly six-sevenths 
of their number are to be found north of the 37th parallel of latitude. 

It appears, then, that the mass of these foreigners settled in the old States, 
where the home influence was strongest, and replacing as many native born citi- 
zens, these last took up their line of march to the wilderness to add to the 
domain of cultivation, to build up another addition to the American Empire, to 
found new States, and mould and form their institutions. Instead, then, of 
Europeanising Americans, Europeans wore thus Americanized. The American 
influence predominates everywhere; and notwithstanding the number of these 
foreigners, they are so distributed as to make the process of their assimilation 
with American society more rapid and easy. This country, then, has been 
indeed the true " oficenafjentium," and not only the workshop in which many 
nations have toiled, but a grand national manufactory, in which men of various 



87 

races liavc rcceivccl the true American mould. It is estimated, in tlie article of 
which I speak, that 400,000 able-bodied laborers of both sexes, are now annu- 
ally coming to this country from abroad, and if this statement should startle 
those who have seen that the Custom House returns give only 307,000 as the 
total number of foreign emigrants, let him remember, that both Chickering and 
De Bow estimate their returns as being 50 per cent, under the true count. Of 
these, a very large proportion has been ascertained to be over 10, and under 
40 years of age. When the statistics upon this subject are collated and com- 
pared, it will 1)0 found, I think, that the estimate of 400,000 is, at least, a pro- 
bable approximation to the true number. Now, whilst most of these laborers 
eettle in the free Atlantic States, to drive the looms of New England, and keep 
the workshops of New York and Pennsylvania busy, a larger number of native 
born citizens march annually into the wilderness to add a new belt to the do- 
main of cultivation and civilization. Who can estimate in figures the effects of 
this double process upon the growth and prosperity of the Confederacy, and 
particularly of the free States? If you estimate the annual production of cuch 
emigrant laborer at only $ 150, you have 60,000,000 for this,item alone, to say 
nothing of the money which many of them bring to pay their passage and e^ 
tablish themselves in the country. Now, does any man suppose that the free 
States, and Massachusetts especially, where this Know Nothing Order seems to 
have established its head quarters, can intend to stop the influx of such a 
Stream of wealth as this ? Shut off this flood of emigration entirely from our 
shores, and such a blight would fall upon Massachusetts as she has not seen 
heretofore in the course of her history. She not only does not intend to pro- 
duce such a result, but she does not profess even to desire it. On the contrary, 
it has been her policy to attract the foreign laborer to this country by a double 
process. Through the restrictive system, she sought to shut out the product of 
bis labor from the American market, if he worked abroad, whilst she proposed 
to give him the exclusive possession of it, if he would transfer his labor to this 
country. To attract cheap labor to her soil, has been a great object of her pol- 
icy; and now that she has substituted the native for the foreign laborer, she 
proposes to disfranchise the latter — to deny him the privileges of citizenship. 
And thus, whilst she is so anxious to free the African slave in the South, she is 
engaged in a scheme to proscribe and degrade ; yes, sirs, and to enslave— for 
there are degrees of slavery — all that portion of her own white laborers who 
are foreign born. To make such an experiment upon the native-born laborer, 
would be too dangerous to attempt; but to substitute him with the foreigner, 
and after filling her workshops with the latter, to disfranchise and proscribe 
him, would produce the same efi'ect in the end. The laborer would be prostra- 
ted at the foot of the capitalist, whose reign would be supreme. The interests 
of labor are one North and South, foreign and native born, and he who seeks to 
set one portion ag:iinst another, is destroying the house by dividing it. Mr. 
Jefferson said that there was a natural alliance between the Northern laborer 
and the South. Both are concerned for the interests of labor; and most of the 
sympathy which the South has found in the North, has grown out of that natu- 
ral bond. It is this power, then, that has been friendly to us that we are in- 
voked to strike. The power which drives the loom, and makes busy the work- 
shops at the North, is friendly to that which raises the cotton and the corn for 
their use; and now we are gravely asked to rob it of its fair political weight, 
and to transfer it to the capitalist, who so far has been against us ! 

It is to be remembered, that every white inhabitant, whether foreign or alien, 
is counted in estimating the political power of the States. In the actual and 
probable state of Massachusetts society, such a policy would throw its whole 
power into the hands of her capitalists, to be wielded it is likely, as it has been 
heretofore used, against ourselves. But, it may be said, she can disfranchise 
the foreigner at home without our assistance; and so she may; but if other 



88 

States refuse to follow ber example, she cannot persevere in it. If she treats 
the foreigner much worst than her neighbor, he will go to States that are more 
liberal; and thus she will lose his labor which is essential to her. At any rate, 
she is not entitled to any assistance or countenance which the Federal govern- 
ment might give. By way of atonement for the sin which she meditates against 
ber own labor, she would be moral at the expense of others, and turn loose the 
African slave in the South, our safety, being the cheap material upon which all 
sorts of experiments may be tried. Now, so far as Virginia is concerned, shall 
we not say that we adopt neither branch of her policy. The African slave we 
shall not turn loose, because his present condition is better both for him and 
for us; and the white laborer we intend to be free — free to enter into an equal 
competition for all the prizes of life — free to purgue all the avenues to honor or 
profit, and free to hope and aspire for all that can give dignity to man and hap- 
piness to life. If he fails it will be owing to himself, and not because the op- 
portunities of success are denied him by the policy of the government to which 
be is attached. If he be a native, then, like St. Paul, he was born a Roman 
citizen; if he be 'of foreign birth, then, like the Centurian, he shall not be 
forced to pay a great price for the privilege, but a place shall be opened for him 
in our political society, as soon as he gives evidence of his fitness for it. Such 
is the policy which we have heretofore pursued, and, in the main, it has worked 
well. The serpent is yet to be warmed into life in this country, which would 
Bting the bosom that protected it. 

We have thus, not only been able to receive this large foreign element and 
assimilate it into our system, but also to convert it into the means of a new 
growth. Instead of being an alien power in the bosom of our society, we have 
attached it to us by the strong ties of sympathy and interest. If we should 
offer extraordinary and unnatural inducements to this emigration, it might be- 
come mischievous, by pouring in so rapidly as to destroy the homogeneous char- 
acter of our people. But if we leave nature free to pursue her own course, 
there can be no danger either of this or of an unwholesome competition between 
the foreign and native born laborer. So long as a field is open large enough to 
employ profitably those at home, and those who will come from abroad, the sup- 
ply will follow the demand. The whole mass of our productions will thus be 
increased, and it is the interest of every one within the bosom of our soc.ety, 
that this should be as great as possible, for it is the common store from which 
all must draw. When this labor becomes less profitable, the demand will fall 
off, and with it the supply; so that the competition of the foreigner will cease 
just at that point of time when its inconveniences become serious. I have 
shown how this, which is one of the greatest operations of society, has been 
heretofore conducted by the laws of trade, so as to secure us as many of its ben- 
efits, and as few of its inconveniences, as was, perhaps, possible. That some 
evilt! and inconveniences will attend so large an operation, I do not deny, but 
they are evils, which, for the most part, may be cured by legislation, adapted to 
the special cases, without making the vain effort to strike down the system. The 
results of the old feeling we have seen ; what would be those of the new I can- 
not pretend to measure in extent, but something may be said of their nature. 

The prescriptive means which are proposed, if the right of suffrage be left to 
the foreigner, will certainly produce the evil which it is proposed to remedy. 
The foreigner will vote not as an American citizen, upon the general merits of 
political issues, but as a foreigner, to remove the ban under which he lies. But 
if you disfranchise him entirely, then you alienate this immense power in the 
bosom of your system of society. For it is an immense force now, and will 
continue to be so, notwithstanding political disabilities, whilst there is so great 
a demand for the means of subsistence. This is quite a new experiment in the 
conduct of society, and has not been tried except in those cases where one por- 
tion has actually subjugated another. The natux-alization laws of old States, 



89 

already filled with people, and to which the emigration is nest to nothing, can 
aiTord no precedents to us. Here they still come in great numbers, and it is not 
even proposed to exelude them. The sole question is as to their treatment after 
they reach our shores. Shall we make them friends or enemies ? It has been 
our ancient policy to cultivate their friendship. "Why not continue to pursue it ? 

Having thus traced the principles which this new party proposes to some of 
their most obvious consequences, let me call your attention now to the number 
of important questions which they refuse to speak of at all. They have noth- 
ing to say upon the subjects of the Tariff, the Currency, the Internal Improve- 
ment system, upon the questions as to the absolute or limited power of the 
General Government over the public lands, or as to the great canons of consti- 
tutional construction. Shall we be told that these questions are all obsolete ? 
In the endless varieties of human commerce are not cases constantly presenting 
themselves with new relations, and requiring different applications of the laws 
of trade ? Does not the course of our Federal legislation constantly present U3 
with cases for the application of all the principles involved in the old issues ? 
And yet the very issues and principles which are involved in the daily business 
of the Government are " ignored," as I believe they call it, by this new party. 
Why, they " ignore" the subject of slavery itself. Can the South afford to have 
such a subject as this ignored? Thus, it would seem, that this new party have 
not only said things that they ought not to have said, but they have left unsaid 
things which they ought to have said. 

But fellow-citizens, is it not worthy of a moment's thought, to sec what are 
to be the moral effects of these new practices upon the character of our people ? 
Who would transform the old Virginian — such as we used to know him— such, 
as I trust, he still is — into what he must become, if he make this radical change 
in his habits and feelings? — The old Virginia was frank, manly and generous, 
and made so by his early training and the character of his political institutions. 
He had his fiiults, it is true, but they were, for the most part, the excesses of a 
brave and manly spirit. Reckless he might be — a little too ready to conceive 
an insult, or too prone to follow the word with a blow ; bat he had no secret 
malice nor mean revenge in his nature. His friendships and his enmities were 
known, and he scorned to strike a foe without giving him notice beforehand. 
If he had opinions, the world might know them; and when he acted as a citi- 
zen, he was ready to meet all the responsibilities of that action, either at the 
bar of public opinion or elsewhere. Y\''ho would be willing to transform such a 
man into the secret agitator, mulBing his face, and treading the dark alley to 
the back door of his midnight conventicle, there to determine upon measures 
involving the welfare of his fellow-citizens, and yet giving them no notice of 
things that were to affect them so deeply; or sitting, perhaps, in secret judg- 
ment upon some unsuspecting neighbor, trying him and condemning him un- 
seen, or unheard, in matters touching his political character and standing, and 
involving, it may be, the little office which gives bread to his family; and yet, 
when that man meets him in the morning, and offers him the hand of unsuspec- 
ting friendship, he is unable to relieve his heart by saying to him, "You wrong 
yourself and me by such undeserved friendship and confidence ; you are gras- 
ping the hand which will strike you a blow where you will feel it most keenly ?" 
It would be some relief to a generous mind to be able to say this much ; but, 
Bpellbound by some terrible vow or oath of secrecy, he must walk on in silence 
and bear the galling load of unmerited conSdence. The edict having gone forth, 
he must obey it; he can express no opinion in opposition to it; he must whis- 
per no dissent; he must breathe no' murmur against it. He belongs not to 
himself, but to his Order. 

And this is the Order for which the old parties, are exhorted to disband their 
organization, and lay down their arras. 1 regret to say, that there are some 
symptoms of a determination on the part of the Whigs to take service under 



90 

this new party. It has been said by some wit, "That nest to an old friend, we 
love an old enemy." T will not pronounce upon that sentiment, but certain it 
is, that I prefer the old to the new enemy. The old Whigs were a manly partyj 
their issues were open; they might be wrong, but they fought upon principles, 
and principles which professed to look to the welfare of the whole, and not of 
a part; they used no secret contrivances to circumvent their adversary, but mci 
bim in the open field. If they obtained power you knew what to expect from 
them. IJut what a change is here, ray countrymen, where this new party ap- 
pears to take their place in the political arena? It is not, however, for me to 
give judgment in this case, or to proifer advice to the Whig party, " nori 710s- 
trum tantas companere lites." But I do protest agninst disbanding the Demo- 
cratic party for any such organization. We are told that the principles of this 
party, and upon which the people have given a favorable verdict, are obsolete. 
If so, it must be for the reason that they are so firmly fixed in the aifection of 
the people, as not to be shaken hereafter ; but if they are thus fixed, it was tho 
Democratic party that achieved the work. Is that just ground for disbanding 
them ? Do we change our physician because he has heretofore cured us, or our 
preacher because he has convinced us, or our house-joiner because his work has 
pleased us? But how can it be said, that the great principles of our publio 
policy in regard to commerce and currency, or the great doctrines of constitu- 
tional construction, can ever become obsolete ? 'Whilst our government lasts, 
they must constantly recur, and be applied in its daily legislation. But why 
disband the Democratic party? For the greater part of a period of more than 
fifty years, it has administered the affairs of the federal government in such a 
a manner as to enforce respect abroad, to secure to us at home such peace and 
harmony as have never been found to exist elsewhere, in connection with the 
enjoyment of so much liberty, and to dcvelup the moral and material resources 
of the country to an extent heretofore unparalled in the history of the world. 
It has shown itself, too, to have been the only party with a spirit broad and 
comprehensive enough to steer the ship of State safely through the storms of 
sectional contests. When section was arrayed against section upon the protec- 
tive policy, it was this party which intervened to adjust matters satisfactorily 
enough, for peace, at least, by the application of the great principles of free 
trade. Under the still more fearful agitations of the slavery question, tho 
South has found chiefly within the ranks of this party, the Northern friends who 
could dare to be just to her and true to the Constitution, without fear of the 
personal consequences which such a course was sure to involve. During tho 
last Congress, so far as the free States are concerned, that party entitled itself 
to the lasting respect and gratitude of the South, for removing the odious ban 
of the Missouri restriction. Throughout the representation of the whole of the 
nou-slaveholding States, no man was to be fourid, outside of the Democratic 
party, who sustained the Nebraska bill. And now that they are in diihcultie?, 
for so noble a discharge of their duties to the Constitution, is this a time to de- 
sert or distrust them ? 

Fellow citizens, I have spoken of the issues which we arc to meet, and of 
the trials which await us. In view of these, I would ask every man, who has 
a Southern heart in his bosom, if he would not, instead of the present state of 
things, restore, if he could, the Democratic party as it was in the last Congress, 
to its former power in that body ? If this could be done, every friend of peace 
and the Union would breathe freer and easier ; there would be no fear of a 
successful attempt in any branch of the Government to abolish slavery in the 
District of Columbia, or in the Territories, or the slave trade between the 
States, or to repeal the fugitive slave law, or to restore the Missouri restriction. 
If then such a change would be desirable, the next best thing, assuredly, would 
be to unite the South, As a body, to the conservative men of the North, who 
are doing battle for the Constitution, and dare to be just to our rights. Let us, 



91 

in tins way, keep together a party strong enough to defend the constitution and 
the peace of the country, until the sober second thought of the people cornea 
in to the rescue, if, iudeeJ, we arc to be rescued at all. What other road is 
there so probably safe as this? And where are those conservative men to bs 
found, in any strength, in the free States, except in the Democratic party ? 
But why, of all the States in the confederacy, should Virginia be exhorted to 
desert the Democratic party, and at such an hour as this 't Has she lost faith 
in their principles ? Are they not, for the most part, her own principles ? 
Loriug, of Massachusetts, in a late eloquent letter, has ascribed the origin of 
that party mainly to Virginia. It has been said, that all the great religions 
of the world have issued from the tents of Shem ; it may be said, I think, 
■with as much truth, that many of the great principles of the Democratic party, 
emanated from the log cabin of the "Virginia pioneer. The foundations of 
much of its public policy are to be found in our colonial history ; and in the 
outset of that party, under the Federal Constitution, it was led by_ Virginians. 
The very banner which is now waiving over its hosts in the field, is, to a great 
extent, the work of Virginia hands. How much of its web and its wood were 
contributed by Jeiferson and Madison— how many of its mottoes were inscribed 
by Virginia intellect— how much of its embellishment, is due to Virginia genius ? 
Why, 1hen, should Virginia desert the Democratic party, and at this time ? 
That party has met with a succession of reverses in the free States; the tide of 
the battle has now rolled to our feet, and the eyes of the whole country are 
fixed upon us. Are we invited to leave our pests now, because of so many de- 
feats elsewhere ? Is it the cry of '' sauve qui. pent" which runs along the line ? 
Are we to desert our friends in extremity to seek for personal safety ? or, worse 
still, to wheel out of line and fire upon them, that we may make our separate 
peace with the foe ? * Perish the base thought. Why is it that cur friends are 
in difficulty ? Because they did justice to us in the Nebraska bill, and refused 
to wrong the South. Is this, then, a time to desert and abandon them to the 
tender mercies of the cruel odds which are against them ? In such an event, 
well might the old ComTnonweallh hang her head in shame, and bow her neck 
to the yoke of the oppressor ; for how could she hope for the trust of friends 
or the respect of foes, after such conduct ? 

Sirs, it seems to me, that no true sou of Virginia, no matter what his politics, 
ought to wish her to change now, to leave the field when such desertion would 
attach so cruel an attaint' to her shield. <' If she is to change," we ought to 
say, " let it be at some other time ;" not now, when the eyes of the whole 
country arc so intently fixed upon her, and when the hopes of her Detnoe-ratic 
brethren everywhere are concentrated upon her, to redeem the fortunes of the 
fight. Should we fail them now, they might well say, as Bruce said to his 
friend at Rannockburn : " Ah, Randdlph, there is a rose fallen from your chap- 
ter," because his enemy had passed when he kept ward. 

But, fellow citizens, may I not say in your name, and in that of the great 
body of the Virginia Democracy, the enemy shall not pass when we keep ward ; 
we vrill roll back the tide of battle which has reached our feet, and redeem, as 
more than once before, the fortunes of this fight. And why not both say and 
do it ? They are the principles of Virginia which are at issue ; the principles 
to which for more than fifty years she has adhered through good and evil report, 
and which she has ever regarded as constituting the bulwarks of her safety ; 
they are the principles, too, which are associated with the recollection of so ma- 
ny struggles in which she bore a conspicuous part, as to be identified with her 
name and her glory. The traditions of the past must speak for them ; the 
tenchings of our fathers, the maxims of the homestead, will plead for them. 
" Oh earth, earth, earth !" said the Hebrew prophet, when, wearied out with 
the perversity of his countrymen, he turned to his native soil, and adjured that, 
to see if he could not arouse within it some answering spirit. 



92 

If sucli an appeal was made in such a cause to the soil of the Old Dominion, 
it seems to me that the ''genius loci" would spring forth, and trunipet-tongued, 
sound the call, v/hich, from the topmost height of her mountains to the lowest 
depth of her vallios, would summon her sons to the rescue. 

Fellow citizens, it has been said, "Let Americans rule America." I say, let 
American principles rule America, and the more that can be rallied to their 
support the better. In the same sense, Tsay let Virginians rule Virginia; let 
Virginia principles rule Virginia. Above all, let us not go to Massachusetts 
just at this time, to borrow counsel or beg for guidance. Let us not borrow 
from her any of those " isms" which have made her so fruitful a cause of 
trouble to her neighbors and unhappiness to herself. Let us not take from her 
this last of her " isms," or carry her sealed letters and secret cipher. For aught 
we know, they may prove to be the letters of Bellerophon, and we may become 
the unconscious bearers of the warrant for our own destruction. 

The time has been when Virginia and Massachusetts exchanged presents of 
sentiment and opinion, but they were sentiments in favour of human freedom, 
and not declarations against that greatest of all liberties, the liberty of con- 
science. For myself, I have closed the pages of Massachusetts history, since it 
became evident that this new party had complete possession of her State gov- 
ernment. I have not followed to the conclusions any of their propositions; to 
translate their old Latin motto into English, because the language is foreign ; 
or to introduce the songs of the Hutchinson family into legislative session, or 
to exclude from their public schools the study of all languages but the vernacu- 
lar. Nor have I enquired very curiously into the precise amount of Know 
Nothing literature which existed, to fill the immense void which would be made 
by excluding all that was not English. But, I beg pardon, there have been 
soma events in her recent history so startling as to enforce the most unwilling 
attention. I have seen, with pain and mortification, that a committee of her 
Legislature, armed with the majesty and power of the State, did, but the other 
day, make a descent upon some unprotected Catholic ladies, who were conducting 
a private school, and used, or rather abused, their authority to insult these defence- 
less females. I have watched, too, with the deepest interest, the case of Loring, 
to see if the power of that great State is to be used to crush a man, merely be- 
cause he obeyed the obligations of his oath, of the constitution, and of the law 
which he was appointed to administer. If that deed be consummated, then I 
say let her face be turned to the wall ; let us endeavor to forget it for awhile, 
at least until these terrible delusious shall have passed away, which vex the 
brain, and disturb the brow. 

Fellow citizens, if the long cherished principles of Virginia are to fall, let it 
be at another time, and not now. Let us perish in some open field, in fair and 
manly fight; but let us not die by the bowstring of the inutt;-.J If the good old 
fiag ship of Democracy is to go down, let it be with colors fiying, and to the 
sound of martial music, and firing the last shot in the locker, in token that the 
Old Guard may die, but cannot surrender. But who talks of failure ? These 
principles will live, and I trust endure for centuries yet to come; that old ship 
will not go down, but 

" Its flag shall brave a thousand years, 
The battle and the breeze." 

Virginia is now aroused to a true sense of the importance of the contest. 
She understands what principles are in issue, and she will soon be in the field 
with all her banners waiving, and ready to charge wiih all her chivalry. In 
the darkest hour of the revolution. Gen. V/ashington said, that when all else 
failed, he would plant his flag in west Augusta, and there defend it to the last. 
If the Democratic party should be defeated in all other places, let it come to its 



93 

favorite stronghold in the Old Dominion, Jind plant its banner tliore. And let 
us defend and protect it, until the people come up to its rescue, as come they 
will, if we preserve the liberty to know, to argue, and to utter freely, accord- 
in'Tjto conscience, and thus afford them the opportunity to understand their in- 
terests : Whilst that continues, I will neither bate in heart, nor hope, nor con- 
sider all is lost until that too is taken from us. 

]Jut, fellow-citizens, I tax your patience much too far. I have been carried 
on by earnest wish to impress you as deeply with a sense of the importance of the 
preseat crisis, as I feel it myself. I have not had the power to do it, as I ought 
to have known before-hand ; yet I struggled on under the hope that some 
chance arrow might reach its mark. I felt, too, it was my duty to warn ynu of 
the danger, which, in ray opinion, lies before you. I have shown you the issues 
which we are to meet; the trials that are not to be avoided. If there be any 
peaceful solution of these difficulties, I have pointed you to the only direction 
in which I think it can be found. In this case, I believe it to be not only the 
path of safety, but that of honor also. You will see, therefore, why I have 
pressed you so earnestly to take it. I do not say that there is no other peaceful 
solution of our difficulties, but merely that I do not see it if it exists. Provi- 
dence sometimes opens up unexpected avenues of escape from peril. My owa 
knowledge, too, even of the past, is very limited : my foreknowledge still more 
60. There are chances which I do not pretend to estimate. I shall be glad to 
avail myself of any which may turn up ; for, next to the safety and honor of 
my country, I desire its peace. Yes, sirs, its peace ; fcr sometimes the whole 
Story of national happiness may be written in that one word. I must aver, 
therefore, that I regard th-se interests as too vast to be staked upon chance. 
But let me say now, and ouce for all, that whatever may betide her, I stand by 
my State. If troubles should come, I will take my full share, without pausing 
to inquire what party, or who of her sons, brought them upon her. We are 
the children of a common mother, and it is our first duty to defend her. 

But if these responsibilities are to be met, and I admit my obligation to do 
so, let me at least have the satisfaction of feeling, that it Virginia goes into the 
contest with no taint upon her brow, or reproach upon her fidelity to the sacred 
obligations of friendship, may it never be said of her, that she brought her 
trouble upon herself by deserting her friends when in peril and difHoultj, and 
may the cry of craven never pursue her as " the pilot that blenched at the 
helm, when the storm blew the loudest." If all else is lost, let us at least save 
her honor. To do this, nothing more is necessary than that she should be true 
to herself; for that much we surely ought to be able to answer. 



MR. WISE AT ALEXANDEIA. 

Mr. Wise addressed the citizens of Alexandria in one of the ablest 
gpeeches he made durisig the campaign. And fortunately a talented corps 
of reporters were present, who took down the speech as it was spoken. If 
mistakes occurred in this report we have never heard of them, either from 
Mr. Wise or his friends. And as we take for granted that it was the onlj 
true and correct report that was ever given of him during the canvass, we 
shall give it an insertion in this compilation. The speech was delivered on 
the night of Saturday, the 3d of February, at Liberty Hall, before an im- 
mense concourse of citizens and strangers, a very larga majority of the 



94 

members of Congress, and many citizens of Washington, having been at- 
tracted by the fame of his oratory. 

[Reported for the N. Y. Herald.] 

Mr. Wise's Speech at Alexandria. — I appear before you to-night, 
citizens of Alexandria, not upon my own account, but as the standard bearer 
of the Democratic party of this State, regularly nominated in accordance 
with the time-honored usage of the party. I come as endorsed and twice 
endorsed by the Democratic party, named as I was to be its elector in 1848, 
and in 1852; elector for the people, and now nominated for the governor- 
ship of the state of Virginia. If any Democrat in this assembly recollects 
that, in times past, I did not always regard regularly organized nominations, 
and chooses to vote against me on that account, let him so do, provided he 
will stand where I have ever stood — upon principle, acting bona fide, 
an earnest honest man ; let him then, I say, vote against me. When he 
does it let him remember that he then does the very act for which he is 
condemning me — vote against the regular nominee. If there be any Wliig 
in this assembly who will vote against me because I am not what he calls 
consistent, and because I have chosen to use party as a servant and not as 
a master, I would not ask him for his vote. But I would ask him not to be 
like me, vvdiom he chooses to deem inconsistent. (Applause.) I ask him, 
when he comes to the polls, to be true and clear in act and conscience ; not 
carrying before him the dark lantern of a secret association and gripping a 
Democrat v/ith one hand and a Whig with the other. If he is the jewel of 
jgpnsistency, which he would have me be, let him be himself guiltless. 
I But, gentlemen, though I have come before you a man nominated by a party, 
' the standard bearer of a party, doing battle for its principles, still I come 
not here to-night to address party. I appear before the people, without 
distinction of party, to address myself to a republican people charged with 
the sacred and^ holy trust of self-government. 'I cosne to address my- 
self to a people whose only means of self-government is by elec- 
tion. I come to address myself to the reason, and the conscience, and the 
judgment, and the will of the people, whose reason, and conscience, and 
judgment, and will, must be exercised in the election^ and let me ask you — 
every considerate, every conscientious man, every man with a stake in 
hand, either of capital or of labor — let me ask you what are the considera- 
tions which ought to govern a republican people charged with the trust as- 
sio-ned to you of worthily bestowing on a man the highest office in the gift 
of the people ? Gentlemen, you have great, momentous, deeply interesting 
topics of domestic policy for your consideration. There is your public 
credit, your public works, your commerce, your agriculture, your mining 
and manufacturing, and the great subject of popular instruction. At this 
moment causes are operating, not only affecting your national credit, your 
state credit, but touching the nerves, the tender nerves of your private 
purses. All Europe is in arms, and the labor of Europe is abstracted from 
the world of commerce. The most powerful sovereigns of the earth are in 
battle array. Each crowned head of Europe is calling for gold — incessant!}'' 
demanding gold, in quantities which Australia and California, and Siberia 
cannot supply. And this demand for gold affects your national credit, your 
state credit, and your private credit. I mean not to create any alarm ; I 
mean not to cause any excitement or distrust in your minds in relation to 
the condition of your credit; but I mean to say that, at no moment of my 
life have I seen the time when there was more necessity than there is at 
present fur prudence in government, and prudence in private afl^iirs. But 
there is a salvo, thank God ! "We live on a continent long enough and 
broad enough to feed the world. We have wheat, we have corn, we have 



95 

pork and beef. One little port, which has grown up like Jonah's gourd 
in a single night, on the lake?, can send inore wheat to market than any 
four ports of Russia ; and that city which is called the Queen City of the 
West, is haunted by the ghosts of slaughtered swine. (Laughter.) One 
single power of Europe now at war, has held up in London the thermome- 
ter of exchange for all the world; still, we have the producing power of 
provisions and munitions of war. (Cheers.) While they are fighting, thank 
God, we can be feeding. (Laughter.) This, this is the salvo. Where the al- 
mighty dollar is made so much of, human food has, by the adventitious aid 
of causes now existing, advanced in value ; wheat has doubled its price. 
I make these remarks in order to bring your attention to the subject of the 
public credit of the state of Virginia, whose bonds have already touched 
eighty-five cents in the dollar. How long that war may last, what accidents 
may happen from it, what collisions may be produced hy it, no human 
foresight can now see. But let us be prepared, and then come what may, 
J pledge myself — if elected Governor of Virginia — that, though direst ne- 
cessity may come, come what will, at all hazards, the public credit of the 
state of Virginia shall be preserved.; (Enthusiastic applause.) Private 
honor is precious ; but, as infinitely higher than an individual is the state, 
60 infinitely higher than private honor is the honor of the state. "Reproach 
Virginia who will, reproach her whoever is so inclined, no man can say that 
her honor has yet been stainedvi (Vociferous applause.) If I be elected 
governor of Virginia, then, I tell you bluntly and briefly, if it be necessary 
to tax you to defend her honor, I shall comniend taxation, though it 
make us groan. (Sensation.) Next to public credit, next to the honor 
of the state, are her great public works, in the high march of pros- 
perity. You have never yet had — it is unfortunate you never have had — 
a S3^stem of public v/orks. Your works have been begun without regard to 
their relative importance. You have n©t completed one before you have begun 
another and another. Your public works are without termini. Your canals 
and your railroads are like ditches dug in the middle of a plantation, without 
outlet at either end. You appropriate for them to-day, neglect them to- 
morrow, and leave the appropriation of the day after to-morrow to repair 
decay. It is time that some one or two, or as many as jou can, of the 
public works of the state of Virginia should be completed, in order to ease 
the taxation of the public. It is time they should be completed, in order to 
render some profit to the state. All that the state of Virginia has been 
wanting has been to reach out her arms to the great West — to tap the Ohio 
river — to join the Big Bend of the Ohio river v;ith your rivers in the East. 
You have reversed, in times past, the order of true policy. You have said, 
" Let us have capital — let us have population, and then we will have a city." 
But you never will have capital — you never will have population, until you 
have the internal improvements to build up a city. You want commerce. 
You have bays, quays, roadsteads, which W'Ould float the navies of the 
world; but you have no seat of commerce — no centre of trade has j^et 
pointed its spires to the heavens on the soil of Virginia. That is because 
you have completed none of your public works. Whatever difference of 
opinion, then, may have been as to the commencement of your works of 
state improvement, now that they are begun — now that millions have been 
spent and wasted upon them — now that you are obliged to be taxed in order 
to complete them, the sooner you submit to the taxation to complete your 
primary works the better. And the most expeditious and certainly the most 
profitable way of completing your works^ of secondary importance is, to 
complete those of primary importance. Ilf, then, elected governor of the 
state of Virginia, I shall use all the influerTcTc which I can wield consistently 
W'ith the public credit, and with the condition of the people, to expedite the 



r 



96 

completion of all the works of primary importance in the state, Next to your 
public works and your commerce, your agriculture is the most important. 
The four great cardinal sources of production — the four great powers of 
production of national wealth are commerce, agriculture, manufacturing and 
mining. We have 64,000 square miles as rich in every element of com- 
merce — in every element of agriculture, of manufacturing and mining, as 
any other 64,000 square miles on the face of the globe; and yet with all 
four powers in her hand, Virginia has, thus far in her history, relied upon 
one source alone. 

[At this period of the oration the noise and confusion became so great 
from the press of people in the hall, that Mr. Wise halted in his speech, 
and invited persons immediately in front of the speaker to take places on the 
platform, so as to make room for the crowd behind — a movement which pro- 
cured your reporters seats in a more eligible location. Mr. Wise, resuming 
said : — ] 

I was saying when interrupted, that the state of Virginia has every ele- 
ment of commerce, of agriculture, of mining and of manufacturing. On 
Chesapeake bay, from the mouth of the Rappahannock to the capes of the 
Chesapeake, you have roadsteads and harbors sufficient to float the navies 
of the world. From the river of Swans, on whose margin we are, down to 
the line of North Carolina, you have the Potomac, the Rappahannock, the 
Penankatank, from Mob jack bay to James river and the Elizabeth river — 
all meeting in the moat beauiitid sheet of water of all the seas of the earth. 
You have the bowels of your Western mountains rich in iron, in copper, in 
coal, in salt, in gypsum, and the very earth is rich in oil whirh makes the 
very rivers inflame. You have the line of the Alleghany, that beautiful 
blue ridge which stands placed there by the Almightj^ not , to obstruct the 
way of the people to market, but placed there in the very bounty of Provi- 
dence to milk the clouds, to make the sweet springs which are the sources 
of your rivers. (Great applause.) And at the head of every stream is the 
waterfall murmuring the very music of your power. (Applause.) And yet 
commerce has long ago spread her sails and sailed away from you ; you 
have not as yet dug more than coal enough to warm yourselves at your own 
hearths ; you have set no tilt hammer of Vulcan to strike blows worthy of 
gods in the iron foundries. You have not yet spun more than coarse cotton 
enough, in the way of manufacture, to clothe your own slaves. You have 
had no commerce, no mining, no manufactures. You have relied alone on 
the single power of agricultui'e : and such agricurtui'e ! (Great laughter.) 
Your ledge-patches outshine the sun. Your inattention to your only source 
of wealth has scared the very bosom of mother earth. (Laughter.) Instead 
of having to feed cattle on a thousand hills, j'ou have had to chase the stump 
tailed steer through the ledge-patches to procure a tough beef-steak. 
(Laughter.) And yet, while your trust has been in the hands of the old 
negroes of the plantation ; while the master knows as little as his slave 
about the science, applied science of agriculture, while commerce and 
manufactures, and mining, have been hardly known, and agriculture has 
been neglected — notwithstanding all that, and notwithstanding the effect of 
this has been that you have parted with as much population as you have 
retained; notwithstanding all this, I say, old Virginia still has a million and 
a half of population left within her limits. She still has her iron, her coal, 
her gypsum, her salt, her copper. She still has her harbors and rivers, 
and her water power, and every source of wealth which thinking men, 
active men, enterprising men, need apply to. 

What boast like that can be made for any other state on the earth? 
'What, then, is our duty as Virginians, as patriots, as men worthy of our 
fathers — worthy to be the husbands of our wives? What is our duly? 



97 

Come to the polls and vote against me and welcome. I am nothing. Record 
your votes under the inlluence ot" any blind prejudice that you please. 
Record your votes against me. You strike down but an humble man when 
you strike me down, and though you strike down a man who is too proud to 
beg you to vote for him, yet he would kneel as a little child and implore you 
to come to the polls, to do something to put forth your strength to raise up 
this blessed old commonwealth. (Great cheering.) Hor head is in the dust. 
With all this pleatitude of power, she has been dwarfed in the Union; but 
by her gods ! I say that she has the power, now, the energy, the resources — 
may I say the men? to be put upon the line of progress to the eminence of 
prosperity, to pass New York yet faster in the Union than ever New York 
has passed her. (Cheers.) [Tou have been called the " Old Dominion." 
Let us as Virginians, I implore you, this night resolve that a new era shall 
daAvn, and that henceforth she shall be called the New Dominion. 
(Cheering.) '" 

Give her commerce, and she will have capital and population; slie will 
have agriculture, mining and manufacturing; and then she will want but one 
thing more — the enlightenment' of her ]>eople. (Cheers.) She wants her 
poj^ular instruction. I do not mean to recommend to you, or to any people 
within the limits of Virginia, any little day school, night school, common 
school, a b c, single rule of three, or Peter Parley 3'ankee system of instruc- 
tion. (Laughter.) I want Mr. Jefferson's policy, that he originally recom- 
mended to the state, to be consummated — an enlarged system of science, 
of literature, of learning, to be given to all classes of our people, to leaven 
the whole lump. (Applause.) I care not how blue a FederalL-^t that man 
may be who curses his red waistcoat, but Thomr.o Jefferson has three thingi 
recorded upon his tomb — that he was the writer of the Declaration of the 
Lidependence of our country, the founder of the Unirer^ity of Virginia, &nd 
the author of the act of religious freedom. (Cheers.) For these three good 
works alone, every man — Democrat or Federalist — may kneel, patriotically 
kneel, at his grave. (Cheers.) The great apostle of Democracy never 
intended that the University of Virginia should be like Michael Angelo'a 
dome in the heavens, without scaffolding or support — never. He intended 
that it should be a dome over roof and cornice, and walls of colleges and 
academies, and of common schools; that it should be « do.ne indeed, but the 
dome of a grand structure for the whole people. He intended that the Uni- 
versity should superintend the colleges, and that there should be a college for 
every centre ; that the colleges should superintend the academies, and that 
there should be an academy for every centre ; that the academies should 
superintend the common schools, and that there should be a common school 
for every centre. He knew what equality was. He knew what Democracy 
was. He knew that the republican institutions of this land were based upon 
no other, no surer foundation than Intelligence and virtue. His Democracy 
did not drag men down from their elevation into the mire ; but his Demo- 
cracy levelled upwards. He knew that if this man's son had all the means 
of education, of common school, of academy, of college and of university, 
and then might travel abroad for his learning, he could not be the equal of 
the son of the father who had to work for his daily food. He knew that if 
it was inhuman for the parent to starve the body of a child, it wa« much 
more inhuman to starve the mind of a child. (Cheers.) He knew that if 
you could afford to raise taxes for alms-houses and pauper-houses, to feed 
the bodies of the poor, it was much more the duty of the state mother to 
furnish mental food to her children. His Democracy was like the principle of 
Christian charity — like the great virtue of Christian charity — it elevated men 
to the highest platform of elevation — high as king's heads; made them sov- 
ereigns indeed, to stand equal foot, equal head, uncontradicted, except by th^' 
7 



9a 

laws of God — with equal opportunities for all. It reached down, to raise 
rnen up to the common level of the hiijhest. He knew that property — pro- 
perty which must be taxed for instruction — had no other muniment, no other 
defence, no other safe reliance for its protection, but intelligence among the 
people. (Applause.) Is there a rich man, then, in this assembly that loves 
a dollar better than the intelligence of the people ? Is there any old bache- 
lor among you, who has no child of his own, who is too mean to support 
some poor man's daughter as his wife, or to be rich in having some rich 
man's daughter to support him ? (Laughter.) Is there a man in the state 
who has already educated his sons, who is now unwilling to be taxed in order 
that his poor neighbor's children may be educated — educated not only in the 
common school, but in the academy, the college, the university? If there 
be, let him remember that before he dies his title to his property may have 
to be tried by a jury to say whether that property be his own or not, 
and if God shall let him live till he dies (laughter,) and he can keep Avhat 
property he has, let him remember that there is such a thing as what law- 
yers call devisahit vel non, that a jury may have to decide whether or not he 
had sense enough to make his will when he died. An ad valorem tax upon 
property is the appropriate tax for the education of the children of the peo- 
ple. Property owes its defence to the virtue and intelligence of the people, 
and property ought, therefore, to be taxed for the education of the people. 
(Cheers.) We want one school for this state that will revive our agriculture. 
We want a school like the Mechlin Institute of Prussia — an institute of ap- 
plied sentence — an institute not to teach political economy and send young 
gentlemen to the legislature before they have hardly picked in their tuition ; 
but an institute that will teach them domestic ecomomy, the proper relation 
between floating and fixed capital at home — how much money a man must 
have to buy — how much land, hcv/ much stock, and how many impllments 
he must have ; an institute that will teach the physiology of animals and 
plants; an institute that will teach natural philosophy and the diseases of an- 
imals and plants. Then, gentlemen, the father who has spent his life in 
acquiring real estate, in spreading out his broad acres, in adding family to 
family of slaves, may die with a &z\\ instructed how to manage the estate. 
You will then have, or it will be your opportunity to have, the same privilege 
that the German baron has, of sending your son for his two, or three, or 
four, or five years' apprenticeship to an institute of that kind that will teach 
him agricultural chemistry and every other science necessary to enable him 
to manage an estate of lands and negroes. The present condition of thing.? 
has existed too long in Virginia. The landlord has skinned the tenant, and 
the tenant has skinned the land, until all have grown poor together. (Laugh- 
ter.) I have heard a story — I will not locate it here or there — about the 
condition of the prosperity of our agriculture. I was told by a gentleman in 
Washington, not long ago, that he v/as travelling in a county not a hundred 
miles from this place, and overtook one of our citizens on horseback, with 
perhaps a bag of hay for a saddle, without stirrups, and the leading line for 
a bridle ; and he said, " Stranger, whose house is that .^" " It is mine," was 
the reply. They came to another. "Whose house is that ?" "JMine, too, 
stranger." To a third : " And whose house is that ?" " That's mine, too, 
stranger; but don't suppose that I am so darned poor as to own all the land 
about here." (Laughter.) We may own land, we may own slaves, we may 
own roadsteads and mines, we may have all the elements of Avealth, but un- 
less we apply intelligence, unless we adopt a thorough system of instruction, 
it is utterly impossible that we can develop as we ought to develop, and as 
Virginia is prepared now to do, and to take the line of march towards the 
very eminence of prosperity. She is in the anomalous condition of an old 
state that has all the capacities of a new one — of a new state that has 



99 

all (he capacities of an old one. Unite with me, tlien, I implore you; 
unite witli each other; lot us as Virf^inians resolve that there shall be a 
longj pull, a strona; pull, and a pull altogether, without distinction of party, 
without prejudice of party — that there shall be a united brotherhood of 
Viri:^inians to rear the head of the old mother commonwealth out of the dust. 
(Cheers.) Jf I am elected governor of the state of Virginia, it shall be my 
devotion, my earnest endeavor, in season and out of season to promote her 
public credit, her internal improvements, her commerce, Iier agriculture, her 
mining and manufacturing, and her popular instruction.. 

Well, now, gentlemen, is not that enough ! Are these topics not sufficient 
for an election for chief magistrate for the state of Virginia? Is thereany- 
thing else worth considering? With conscientious, with considerate men — 
with men determined to cast aside minor things, mere prejudices, whether 
personal or political — is there not enough in these six cardinal points to guide 
your votes and to govern this election ? What more do you want? Why, 
you are in the habit of discussing federal politics ; and permit me to say to 
you, very honestly and very openly, that next to brandy, next to card-play- 
ing, next to horse-racing, the thing that has done Virginia more harm than, 
any other in the course of her past history, has been her insatiable appetite 
for federal politics. (Cheers and laughter.) She has given all her great 
men to the Union. Her Washington, her Jefferson, her Madison, her Mar- 
shall, her galaxy of great men, she has given to the Union. When and 
where have her best sons been at work, devoting their best energies to her 
service at home ? Richmond, instead of attending to Richmond's business, 
has been too much in the habit of attending to the affairs of Washington 
city, when there are plenty there, God knows, to attend to them themselves. 
(Laughter.) If you want my opinions upon federal politics, though, I shall 
not skulk them. The most prominent subject is that of the foreign war. It 
is said that this administration is a "do nothing administration." To its 
honor I can claim of every fair-minded man of you — to its honor T can claim 
that it is at least preserving our neutrality in the foreign war. (Loud and 
prolonged cheers.) I concur with them in that policy, and here let me say, 
that, so far as I am concerned, my sentiments are utterly opposed to any 
fillibustering in any part of the world. (Cheers.) 

Then you have the question of the public lands. We are told, now-a-days, 
that all the old issues are dead. It is not so. If there has been one thing 
next to the Constitution of the United States more than another among our 
institutions which has been grand, and ereat, and good, it has been the ope- 
ration of the great land ordinance of 1787. It came, like most of the insti- 
tutions of North America, by inspiration from Heaven. There is no proto- 
type of the land system of the United States in ancient or modern times. 
There is nothing like it in the feudal system. There is nothing like it in any 
of the examples of modern Europe. Its very beauty is its simplicity. An 
eminent domain ; a virgin soil, richer than any that God's sun ever shone 
upon, or heaven's dews ever watered; the simple system of sectioning the 
public lands by north and south, east and west lines, making them the homes 
of the brave and of the free, clear of all litigation — selling them at the lowest 
price, at a minimum that is within the reach of the poorest man, and gradu- 
ating the price before exposed to sale at the minimum by an infinitesimal 
graduation — those who have been denouncing the graduation of the public 
lands ought to remember that there never has been a time when the price of 
the public lands was not graduated; that they have ever been exposed first 
to public sale before they have been exposed for sale for the minimum price 
of a dollar and a quarter. You had an eminent domain, which was a sacred 
trust, for the common use and benefit of all the states of the Union. You 
had that eminent domain under your own care, to which the poorest man, 



100 

the forlornest man of the east, might go for a home in the west. You had 
room there for the frontierman, for the actual settler, armed with the simple 
implement of the logwood axe to hew out unto himself a home for settle- 
ment, to strike the light of the log cabin, and to invite the oppressed of 
every land to our land for an asylum, w^ilh a soil rich enough to grow a vine 
luxuriant enough to shade him and his dwelling all over, where there were 
none to make liim afraid. (Cheers.) If you ask me for my opinion in rela- 
tion to the public lands, I will tell you that first and foremost, next, at least 
to preserving the sacred trust as a source of revenue to ease taxation by 
customs, I would protect, by all the protective policy in my power, the actual 
settlers upon our public lands. (Cries of "good, good.") 

I have been in the west ; I have seen the frontiersman ; 1 have broken hi3 
bread; I have drank of his cup ; I know his enterprise; I know his man- 
hood ; I know his privations ; I know his courage ; I know his endurance ; 
and I know that he is the best of the right arm of the power of his 
country. (Cheers.) I knovr that with his logwood axe alone, he has laid 
the empires of no less than seventeen sovereignties in our confede- 
racy. I would protect him, while at the same time I would conserve 
the eminent domain of this country, as a source of revenue to be held as 
legislation of Congress. I would prevent the public lands from being 
sacred as the revenue by customs. I would protect it from the partial 
the prey and the plunder of politicians. I would protect them from land- 
jobbers and politicians. I would prevent them from becoming a source of 
corruption to Congress, thereby destroying our state rights and our state 
sovereignty. (Loud cheers.) I would protect them from the electioneering of 
parties ; and any bill that has these ends in view has my concurrence. The 
President of the United States tells us that 23,000,000 of acres of the pub- 
lic lands have been disposed of during the past year, and that only 7,000,000 
have been sold. Thus, without law, while 7,000,000 have been sold, 16,- 
000,000 have been given away ; and the price of the public lands, without 
chano-ing the minimum, has been reduced and graduated with a vengeance. 

As to the subject of internal improvements that, too, is alive and kicking. 
That part of " the American system " is not a dead issue. Congress has been 
passing harbor and river bills. It is a part of the system of the light-houses 
of the skies of 182S. It is a part of "the American system," and I thank 
God that not only has there been a Hickory and a Tyler, but that now there 
is found a Pierce to thunder his veto against such measures. (Great cheer- 

You are told that the tariff is a dead issue. That, too, is alive. Such are 
the energies and resources of this country, that we have paid the debt of 
the war of the Revolution, we have paid the debt of the second war of In- 
dependence, and we have paid the debt of the war with Mexico; and now 
there is a proposition for a reduction of the revenue. A question arises, 
shall that reduction be made upon the protected or the unprotected class of ar- 
ticles ? On that subject, I stand where I have ever stood — a free trade man. 
(Loud cheers.) 

But, gentlemen, I am hurrying over all these topics to get at one which is 
the subject of the day — the fatal subject of discussion. I mean the inter- 
state relations of this Union on the subject of slavery. I have had a very 
severe training in collision with the acutest, the astutest, the archest, enemy 
of Southern slavery that ever existed. I mean the "Old Man Eloquent," 
John Qnincy Adams. I must have been a dull boy indeed if I had not 
learned my lessons thoroughly on that subject. And let me tell you that, 
ao-ain and again, I had reason to know and to feel the wisdom and the saga- 
city of thatdeparted man. Again and again, in the lobby, on the floor, he 
told me, told me vauntingly, that the pulpit would preach, and the school would 



101 

tench, and the press would print, among the people wlio had no tic and no 
association with slavery, until, would not onl_y be renchcd the slave trade 
between the states, the slave trade in the District of Columbia, slavery in the 
District, slavery, in the territories, but slavery in the states. Again and 
again, he said that he would not abolish slavery in the District of Columbia 
if he could ; for he would retain it as a bone of contention, a fulcrum of the 
lever for agitation, agitation, agitation, until slavery in the states was shakea 
from ita base. And his prophesies have been fulfilled — fulfilled far faster, 
and more fearfully, certainly, than ever he anticipated before he died. 
When I left the House of Representatives at that capitol, ten years ago, had 
I said to Mr. Adams, " Sir, to me it seems that the Congress of the United 
States can carve out a piece of slavery territory and make it free soil," he 
would have said, "No, sir; Congress will not dare to attempt such a thing; 
it would be a casus belli if they did." And yet, have you not seen that 
Congress has carved out, in round numbers, 44,000 square miles from the 
slave state of Texas? Have you not seen a brigadier general (Riley) of the 
United States army, with his epaulettes on his shoulders, cocked hat upon 
his head, and sword at his side, in full panoply of uniform, acting as a briga- 
dier general of the standing army of the United States, go into the territory 
of California, and there, with the right arm and the left arm of executive 
power — the army and navy — at his command ; have you not seen him, I 
say, under the pretext that the army and navy could not protect persons and 
property, proclaim from the camp a territorial Legislature, a territorial 
judiciary, from fribimales superiores down to the alcade ! Have you not seen 
him constitute himself chief executive — territorial executive? How dared 
a brigadier general of the United States standing army thus to assume the 
power of usurping territorial government? Had he been court martialed he 
would have produced his order from a Delaware secretary of state (Mr. 
Clayton) and he would have replied that the sahis populi — the safety of the 
people — required this territorial usurpation by a brigadier general of the 
United States army. Well, if it did require the civil power — as well as the 
army and navy — why, the plea of necessity was met. There was the 
Legislature, there was the judiciary, there was the civil executive, as well 
as the brigadier general, who had at his command the navy and the army 
that was there. How dared he then, to go further, after the plea of neces- 
sity was sufficiently met, and after the safety of the people was secured? 
How dared he go forth and proclaim the time, place and manner of holding 
elections? Elections for what? Elections for a Convention. Convention, 
for what? To form a constitution. A constitution, for what? To create a 
state — a sovereignty. Yes, by proclamation from the camp of the brigadier 
general of the standing army of the United States, elective franchise was 
created. He gave it to Chilean, to Chinese, to Patagonian, to Peruvian, and — 
last, though not least — to a Georgia representative in Congress (Thomas But- 
ler King.) And after creating suffrage to create a convention — the highest 
act of the people — convention to create a constitution, constitution to create 
a state, a sovereign state — the highest act of creation that can be performed 
by human power — an act next only to those of Deity — no higher act can the 
people themselves exert — he inducted California a free soil state into the 
Union. Thus free soilism has been proclaimed from the camp of the stand- 
ing army. And what has been the result? "Acquiesce" was the word ; 
" acquiesce." They have traded on the pious attachment of the people of 
the United States to that palladium of liberty, the Union of the states. 
They have traded upon the feeling of alarm for the Union which was never 
in danger — never, never. They made "acquiesce" the pass-word for the 
people. ^And what did we get in return ? We got a free soil law. (Derisive 
cheers.) We got the grant of the constitution itself — the glorious privilege 



102 

of catching runaway niggers.: For that, for that we have submitted to 44,000 
square miles of slave state territory being taken and converted into free soil 
territory. For that we have acquiesced in the proclamation of free soil 
California from the camp of the standing army of the United States, without 
authority of Congress. Aye, but they tell me it was all sanctioned by the 
people. The people ! The word people has two signiiications. It is either 
a mere aggregate of human beings, or it is an organized aggregate of human 
beings. Nothing short of an organized aggregate of human beings in Cali- 
fornia could ever have sanctioned this usurpation ; there was no organized 
aggregate of human beings, either to permit the usurpation or to sanction the 
usurpation. But we got the fugitive slave act. But how execute it? Can we 
execute it? A master from the state of Maryland, directly after the act was 
passed, went to Pennsylvania to recover his property ; he was murdered ; 
and judge and jury could not be found to execute the law, to render a verdict 
or pass judgment upon the crime of murder itself, in that case. At last a 
Virginia master, from this town, I believe, went to Boston to have the law- 
executed, and to execute it the marshal had to call on the President of the 
United States — and thank God, there was a Democratic New Hampshire 
President of the United States, who was ready to obey the call. (Cheers.) 
The army and navy were ordered to protect the marshal in the performance 
of his duty. He did perform his duty, at an expense of $13,000 to the city 
of Boston, and of more than $100,000 to the government and to individuals; 
and the captive was brought back by reclamation to Virginia. And what 
has been the consequence? Now we come to the dragon's teeth. Mr. 
Adams' prediction has been fulfilled. The preachers have begun. The 
three thousand preachers of Christian politics opened their battery from the 
press. I have here a specimen of one of their sermons, which I beg leave 
to read to you, 1 hold in my hand a discourse called "The Rendition of 
Antony Burns, its causes and consequences ; a discourse on Christian politics, 
delivered in Williams' Hall, Boston, Whitsunday, June 4, 1854." — I beg 
you, gentlemen, to remember that date — 4th of June, 1854 — because some 
prophecies are made in that sermon which are wonderful prophecies, if this 
preacher did not know something — (laughter) — "by James Freeman Clarke, 
minister of the church of the Disciples," published by request — h^econd 
edition of two thousand — printed at Boston. It commences with introductory 
services. There is — first the reading the psalms — (laughter) — second, a 
hyrnn; third, selections from the prophets; fourth, prayer; fifth, reading of 
Scripture — selections from the lamentations of Jeremiah — (great laughter) — 
sixth, a hymn : — 

"Men, whose boast it is that ye 
Come from fathers brave anrl i'ree — 
If there breathes on earth a slave, 
Are ye truly free and brave ? 

They are slaves who dare not speak 
For the fallen and the weak. 
They are slaves who will not choose, 
Hatred, scoffing and abuse. 

Rather than in silence shrink 

From the truth they needs must think — 

They are slaves who dare not be 

In the right with two or three." (Great laughter.) 

These are cabihstic terms, gentlemen, — " Two or three." Then comes 
seventhly, the sermon : — 

" Is this the city, which men call the perfection of beauty, the joy of the 



103 

whole earth ? Her gates are sunk into the ground. He hath destroyed and 
broke her bars. Her kings and princes arc among Gentiles. The law 
is no more. Her prophets also find no vision from the Lord." 
That is the text. The preacher says : 

" I have invited you here this morning to meditate on the facts of the 
•v\-eek — the phenomenon which has occurred in the streets of Boston. The 
slave power which has triumphed in Congress over the rights of the north, 
which has violated sacred compacts, and broken contracts, has * * * come north 
to Boston, taken possession of the court-house, so as to govern our Avhole 
police force, our whole miUtary force, and suspend and interrupt the business 
of our citizens, until its demands can be satisfied. * * * The slave 
power drove the Indians out of Georgia, brings on a Florida" war, and, at last 
grown bolder, proposes to annex Texas as a slave state, and after a struggle 
carries the main feature of that transaction. It was done avowedly to pre- 
vent the abolition of slavery and to strengthen the slave power. Not only 
was this purpose declared in Congress by Mr. Henry A._ Wise and others, 
but also by Mr. Calhoun, Secretary of State, in diplomatic correspondence 
with Mr. Pakenham, the British Minister. * * * A blind adherence to 
party is another cause of our present position. The mere names of Whig, 
Democrat, or Free Soiler are now worth nothing." 
Do you not hear some talk like that now ? 

" We must have men to vote for — upright, downright and outspoken. In 
that is your last hope — your only security." 
Again — 

"The sibyl, each time we reject her offer, demands a higher price. What 
she would have done in 1850 she will not do now. What she will do now 
she will not do five years hence. * * The country is at last awaking. 
The great w^est is awaking. Ohio is wheehng into line, and will be perhaps 
the leader in the coming struggle." 

What coming struggle? How did this preacher know that Ohio was 
wheeling into line as early as the 4lh of June, 1854 ? 
Again — 

" Northern enthusiasm, when fully aroused, has always been more than a 
match for southern organization — northern conscience." 

Oh! gods! (Great laughter.) Northern conscience ! Take a shark skin, 
and let it dry to shagreen — skin the rliinoceras — go then and get the silver 
steel and grind it, and when you have ground it, then take the hone and 
whet it till it would split a hair, and with it prick the shagreen or ■tne 
shark skin, and then go and try it on northern consciences. (Cheers and 
laughter.) 

" Northern conscience, slow but stubborn, more than a match for southern 
impetuosity ! So may it be still. If right is very apt to be overthrown at 
first, it is sure of victory in the end — 

Careless seems the great avenger, 

History's pages but record, 
One death struggle in the darkness, 

'Twixt old systems and the " word ;'* 
Truth forever or the scaffold. 

Wrong forever or the throne. 
Yet that scali'old sways a future. 

And behind tlie dim unknown 
Standeth God within the shadow. 

Keeping watch above his own." 

And this is the first time that this preacher of Christian politics has named 
God in the whole sermon : — 

" May to-da}', he continues, be a Pentecost to the cause of humanity; to- 
day may the servants of Christ be every where speaking with one tongue, 



104 

as the Spirit gives them utterance. May all our devotions and aspirations 
be — " 

This is fusion. 

"That all true lovers of liberty — whether they call themselves Whig, 
Democrat, Free Soiler or Abolitionist — be united in one calm and honest 
purpose, that once again all may be of one speech and one tongue. We 
must be united ; we must sacrifice everything to unite in one great northern 
party all the friends of freedom and humanity. Let us forget the past, and 
gladly receive help from all. Let us reproach none, because those who come 
in at the eleventh hour — whoever lepent and do deeds meet to repentance, 
even if he has been a servant of kidnappers, a United States Commissioner 
or Marshal, the editor of a sham Democratic paper, or worse than all, a lower 
law Doctor of Divinity. Whoever will repent let him be welcome. Let us 
be calm." 

And " calm," there, means not only composed but silent and secret. 

*' Let us put the calmest, coolest man in front to lead us ; let the most 
cautious advise and tell us what to do; let those of us who for years have 
been speaking, now listen for words from those whose turn has come to speak. 
The anti-slavery platform welcomes its new orators from State street and 
Long wharf. Let us not by any rashness lose the opportunity of uniting all 
men. As regards the southern threat of dissolving the Urtion, that has now 
lost its terror. If we had disregarded it ten years ago we should not have been 
in such danger of dissolution of the Union as we are to-day. The majority 
of the north to-day have no objection to a dissolution of the Union. In this 
community, where one man was opposed to the Union a week ago, a hundred 
men are opposed to it to-day. The danger of dissolution of the Union now 
is from the north, not from the south, if some effective measures are not 
taken to prevent the rendition of another fugitive from the northern states. 
We can all determine to support no man hereafter for any public office in 
the federal or state governments who is not openly pledged to five things ; 
first, the abolition of the obnoxious clause of the Nebraska bill; second, the 
right of trial by jury for fugitives; third, the exclusion of slavery from the 
territory; fourth, the admission of no more slave states; fifth, the abolition 
of the Union, if these things cannot be obtained." 

That is what they call " Christian politics" in Boston. (Laughter.) 

What is the result of such preaching, such teaching, such printing ? 
What has been the result of the pulpit, the school-houses and the press at 
the north upon this subject ? Gentlemen, but a short time back. New Eng- 
land — Massachusetts especially — had but one ism within her limits, and 
that was Puritanism, the religion of the good old Covenanters and Congre- 
gationalists — Puritanism, full of vitality, full of spirituality — Puritanism 
that made even the barren rock of Plymouth to fructify, that made 
the New Englanders a strong people, that made them a rich people, that 
made them a learned people. But since they have waxed fat, since they 
have begun to build churches by lottery, begun to moralize mankind by 
legislation, begun to play petty providences for the people, begun to be 
Protestant Popes over the consciences of men, begun to preach " Chri.-tian 
politics," such as you have heard, Puritanism has disappeared, and we have 
in place of it Unitarianism, Universalism, Fourierism, Millerism, Mormonism 
— all the odds and ends of isms — until at last you have a grand fusion of 
all those odds and ends of isms in the omnium gatherum of isms, called 
Know-Nothingism. (Cheers, laughter, and hisses.) What is it ? Now I 
wish not to offend any man in this assembly, because I would fain believe 
of our Virginians who are uniting themselves with this association, that, 
tjieir motives and their acts are as innocent as mine.' I would fain believeN 
that no man in the state of Virginia means more than simply some political / 



105 

end by uniting himself with this association, and to such men — conscien- 
tious, thinking men, who mean no more than to pick up a stick with wjiich ., 
to bruise the head of democracy — T will only say, beware ! my friends ; 
you may be picking up a serpent that will sting you_ as deadly as it will 
democracy. (Cheers and stamping of feet.) I assail no motives here. 
You may'te, according to that passage of Scripture which we sometimes 
read — that 11th verse of the l.'Jlh chapter of 2d Samuel, which tells us that 
two hundred men went out from .lerusalcm with Absalom, when he left his 
father ; that they " went out in their simplicity, and that they knew^ not any- 
thing." (Laughter.) And Bishop Hall most emphatically comments upoa 
that^by saying that the two hundred went out in their simi)licity, not know- 
ing anything, and they were merely loyal rebels ; but Absalom knew what 
he was about; he knew something; he knew that when the trumpet blew 
behind, it should be understood by the people that Absalom reigneth in , 
Hebron; and I tell you that there is an Absalom at work with Know-/ 
Nothingism. (Gjceat cheering a«d some hissesA-' 

" What is it.^" Where did it come from ? What can it be? Did it full 
from the sky ? Did it rise from the sea ? 

I tell you that there is no wonder about it. I tell you that I know it from 
A to Z. I know where it came from. I know where it was engendered. 
I know what it has done, and I can exchange with you, my friend, every 
sign, every grip, every pass. (Laughter.) I know its white triangles and 
its red triangles, its red arrowtops and its white arrowtops. T know your 
odd numerals and yonr even numerals. I know your odds from A to M in- 
clusive, and I know your evens from N to Z inclusive. (Laughter.) Now, 
where did it come from ? It is no new thing. "^It is no strange thing. Al- 
thouo-h it is a wonder here, it has been operating for years and years in 
Old England. You that will go to a bookstore and buy Dickins' novel of 
" Hard Times" will see a portraiture of the thing, and how^ it has operated 
in a country with an aristocracy and a queen, with lord proprietors of facto- 
ries and of lands, which they rent to middle men Avho grind down the opera- 
tives. There, in England, the secret association of the operatives against 
grinding capital, I grant you, has done much good. There, there is some 
necessity for it; there, where men's noses are held to the grindstone 
by oppression ; there, where all the luxuries are free, and all the necessa- 
ries of life are taxed ; there, where the operative is made to bear all the 
burdens of society ; there, where there is a crowned head and an aristocracy 
— there, dark-lantern, secret association, test oaths have brought forth some 
reforms. Well, seeing its effect in that country — Exeter Hall — the aboli- 
tionists of Endand sent it over to the preachers of " Christian politics" in 
Boston and New York, to apply its machinery to the north and the non- 
slaveholding states. (Cheers and hisses.) They brought it over. They 
have tried it, and they had it organized as early as June 4th, 1854. They 
knew its potency. They knew its effect. Therefore it was that Mr. Free- 
inan Clarke could tell you that he knew that Ohio was wheeling into line. 
This thing was all planned — all organized — and it did sweep Massachusetts, 
and New York, and Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, and Delaware, and Ohio, 
and Indiana, and Illinois, and Michigan, and Iowa. It has swept them with 
tlie besom of destruction. (Cheers and laughter.) 

Go now to Massachusetts, and you find among her hundreds of legislators 
but one friend of the Constitution left. Sixty-two of these preachers of 
" Christian politics" have been returned to sit in the seats once filled by such 
men as John Hancock. There, in the neighborhood of Faneuil Hall, in the 
land of steady habits — in the land of the Puritans — Theodore Parker, but the 
other day, received 122 votes to be a chaplain. A man anti-Christ, so much 
devil incarnate that he can hide neither tail nor hoofs, receives in a Massa- 



106 

chusetts lep;islature 122 votes to be a chaplain. Massachusetts! Massa- 
chusetts ! the elder sister of Virginia, who in the night of the revolution 
gave her pass-wo;-d for pass-word, sign for sign, cheer for cheer, in the rnidst 
of our gloom ! iJVIassachusetts has thrown aside her Puritanism, her Chris- 
tian religion, her constitution, and has given. Jierself up to Know-Nothingism 
and anti-slavery. (Tremendous cheering.) Let us see the working of 
Know-Ncthingism in Massachusetts. I hold in my hand the otiicial address 
of his excellency Henry J. Gardner to the two branches of the legislature of 
Massachusetts. You see here upon one page of it, "not through a glass 
darkly," but plainly, an intimation of amalgamation itself. " It is a great pro- 
blem," he says, "in statesmanship wisely to control the mingling of races 
into one nationality." Can you give that the grip ? (Roars of laughter.) 
Another specimen of Know-Nothingism is a recommendation in this message 
that the right of suffrage shall be limited to those who can read and write. 
Do the Know-Nothings of Virginia give that grip too? The only illustrious 
painting that this country has given to the fine arts has been the picture of 
the Saviour of mankind healing the sick. This message recommends that 
the sick foreigner sliall be tumbled out of the hospital bed into the Calcutta 
hole of the emigrant ship, and sent back again to Liverpool ! This, then, is 
a samjile of the charitableness and religion of Know-Nothingism. But, gen- 
tlemen, here is the governor's doctrine in relation to the Nebraska bill. 

Mr. Wise then read a passage from -the message in relation to the repeal of 
the compromise, which the governor characterises as "a violation of the 
plighted faith of the nation," and declares that "the ultimate effect will be 
to determine us manfully to demand the restoration of this broken compact, 
and to jealously guard each and every right that belongs to Massachusetts." 

That is in exact correspondence with the preaching of Mr. Freeman Clarke. 
But the governor goes on : 

" V/hile we acknowledge our fealty to the Constitution and laws, the oft- 
repeated cry of disunion heralds no real danger to our ears." 

Of those lights which Massachusetts is jealously to regard, it seems the 
two cardinal ones are the habeas corpus to take the fugitive slave out of the 
hands of the United States commissioner; and trial by jury, to have the 
title of the Virginia master subjected to the verdict of twelve abolitionists! 
"It is submitted," says the governor, "whether additional legislation is 
required to secure either of these to our fellow-citizens." 

Gentlemen, that is not ail. This Know-Nothing legislature has just elected 
one of the most notorious, one of the most inveterate of their abolition lead- 
ers, to the senate of the United States, and I beg to read to you a passage 
from a Boston paper which came to my hand this evening. It is the Boston 
Daily Chronicle, and I presume no one will say that it misrepresents the 
position of the Know-Nothings in the state of Massachusetts: 

Mr. Wise then read a long report of a lecture on the "evils of and the 
remedy for slavery," delivered at the Tremont Temple, Boston, by Mr. An- 
son Burlingame, one of the Know-Nothings elected to Congress, in which he 
took ground in favor of the repeal of the Nebraska bill, the repeal of the 
fugitive slave law, the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, and 
the prohibition of slavery in the territories of the United States. 

Speaking of the Nebraska bill, this lecturer said : 

" One of its fruits was the election of a senator at the state house yester- 
terday, (great applause and calls for Wilson, who was on the platform,) one 
who would take the place of one who was false to freedom and not true to 
the slave, (thus denouncing Edward Everett.) He himself, on going to 
Washington, should so endeavor to conduct himself as to truly represent his 
native place." 

The report continues : — 



107 

"After Mr. Biirlingame had concluded, I\Ir. Wilson was called for most 
heartily, and came forward. He stated that cverylhini; lAIr. Burlingame liad 
uttered he would endorse. He intended, in accepting hi.s post, to yield 
nothing of his aati-slavery sentiment to anybody or for anything. He would 
comprehend in his action the whole country, of every color; but, in saying 
the whole country, he included Massachusetts and the north." Governor 
Gardner was called for, and amid loud cheers rose, but modestly declined to 
speak. 

There is a Know-Nolhing member elect from Massachusetts to the Con- 
gress of the United States. There is a United States senator elect of the 
Know-A^othings, who confesses the accusation which I make, that the new 
party of Know-Nothings was formed especially for the sake of abolitionism. 
(Cheers and hisses.) And there is a Knovv-Nothing governor — one of the 
nine who are all ready to take the same ground. (Stamping of feet and 
some hissing.) Then, gentlemen, I have here an act of the Know-Noihing 
legislature of Pennsylvania, which proposes to give citizenship to the fugitive 
slaves of the south. I have here, also, an article which is too long for me to 
read, exhausted as I am, from the Worcester Evening Journal, an organ of 
governor Gardner and senator Wilson, which says to you boldiy that the 
American Organ at Washington is a pro-slavery organ, that it is not a true 
Know-Nothing organ, and that they speak for the north when they claim 
that they have already one hundred and sixty votes of the non-slaveholding 
states organized, eleven more than sutficient to elect a president of the Uni- 
ted State's without a single electoral vote from the slaveholding states. 

Now, gentlemen, having swept the northern and the northwestern non- 
slaveholding states of the Union, the next onset is on the soil of Virginia. 
This Worcester Journal boasts that Maryland and Virginia are already almost 
northern states ; and pray, how do they propose to operate on the south ? 
Having swept the north— Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, and all 
those other states — the question was : How can this ism be wedged in the 
south ; and the devil was at the elbow of these preachers of " Christian pol- 
itics," to tell them precisely how. (Cat-calls, derisive cheers, and other 
manifestations of the Know-Nothing element of the meeting.) There v>'ere 
three elements in the south, and in Virginia particularly, to which they 
might apply themselves. There is the religious element — the Protestant 
bigotry and fanaticism — for Protestants, gentlemen, have their religious zeal 
wfthout knowledge, as well as the Catholics. (A voice, " True enough, sir.") 
It is an appeal to the 103,000 Presbyterians, to the 300,000 Baptists, to the 
800,000 Methodists of Virginia. Well, how were they to reach them? 
Why, just by raising a hell of a fuss about the Pope. (Laughter.) The 
Pope! The Pope, "now so poor that none can do him reverence," so poor 
that Louis Napoleon, who requires every soldier in his kingdom to be at Se- 
bastopol, has to leave a guard of muskets at Rome ! Once on a time, crowned 
heads could bow down and kiss his big toe; but now, who cares for a Pope in 
Italy ? Gentlemen, the Pope is here. Priestcraft at home is what you h ;ve to 
dread more than all the Popes in the world. T believe, intellectually, and in my 
heart as well as in my head, in evangelical Christianity. I believe that there 
is no other certain foundation for this republic but the pure and undefiled 
religion of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. And the man of God who believes in 
the'Father, in the divinity of the Son, and the Holy Ghost — the preacher in 
the pulpit, at the baptismal font, by the sick bed, at the grave, pointing 

The way to heaven and leading there, 

I honor. No man honors him more than I do. But the priest who deserts 
the spiritual kingdom for the carnal kingdom, he is "of the earth, earthly," 



108 

whoever be be — Episcopalian, Baptist or Methodist — who leaves the pulpit 
to join a dark-lantern, secret political society, in order that he may become 
a Protestant Pope by seizin>^ on political power — he is a hypocrite, whoever 
he be. (Some applause, and cries of "good.") Jesus Christ of Nazaieth 
settled the question himself. I have his authority on this question. When 
the Jews expected him to put on a prince's crown and seat himself on the 
actual throne of David, he asked for a penny to be shown him. A penny 
was brought to him, a metal coin, assayed, clipped, stamped, with the image 
of the state, representative of the civil power, stamped with Ctesar's image. 
"Whose image and superscription is this?" "It is Ciesar's." "Then, 
render unto Cssar the things that be Cfesar's, and unto God the things that 
be God's." (Applause.) " My kingdom is not of this world. My kingdom 
is a spiritual kingdom." C?esai''s kingdom is political, is a carnal kingdom. 
And I tell you that if I stood alone in the state of Virginia, and if priest- 
craft — if the priests of my own mother church dared to lay their hands on 
the political power of our people, or to use their churches to wield political 
influence, I would stand, in feeble imitation of, it may be, but I w'ould stand, 
even if I stood alone, as Patrick Henry stood in the revolution, between 
the parsons and the people. (Applause and a cry of " Fm with you.") 
I want no Pope, either Catholic or Protestant. I will pay Peter's pence to 
no pontiff — Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist, or any other. 
(Applause and cries of "good.") They not only appeal to the religious ele- 
ment, but they raise a cry about the Pope, these men, many of whom 
are neither Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, Congrega- 
tionalists, Lutherans, or what not — who are men of no religion, who have 
no church, who do not say their prayers, who do not read their Bible, who 
live God-defying lives every day of their existence, are now seen with faces 
as long as their dark-lanterns, w-ith the whites of their eyes turned up in 
holy fear lest the Bible should be shut up by the Pope ! (Laughter, ap- 
plause, and derisive cheers.) Men who were never known before, on the 
face of God's earth, to show any interest in religion, to take an}'- part with 
Christ or his kingdom, who were the devil's own, belonging to the devil's 
church, are all of a sudden very deeply interested for the word of God and 
against the Pope ! It would be well for them that they joined a church 
which does believe in the Father, and in the Son, and 'in the Holy Ghost. 
(Good.) Let us see, my friends, what Know-Nothingism believes in. Do 
you know that, gentlemen? (Holding up a small pamphlet, amid great 
laughter and excitement. That is your formulary of the Grand Council ot 
the United States of North America, from the press of Damerill £c Moore, 
No. 10 Devonshire street, Boston, 18.54. 

A voice — " Is it January ?" 

Mr. Wise — Yes, it is January. It has been used. Here is one of 5'our 
charters, (holding up a printed document,) and now, if you can see it, you 
will perceive it has been used by one of your lodges. (Cries of " Read it 
— drive along. Old Virginny.") Yes I will read from your own book. But 
I am on the subject of your religion now — you want to put down one of the 
evangelical churches of the country, which does believe not only in the 
Father, but in the divinity of Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost — a Trini- 
tarian church. I want to ask the Episcopalians, and the Presbyterians, and 
the Methodists, Avhether they are going to put down that Trinitarian church 
by a secret association ? Your sphere consists of the 26 letters of the al- 
phabet. You number your letters from A to M inclusive, with the odd 
numerals down to 26. Thus, A 1. B 3, C 5, D 7, E 9, F 11, G 13, H 15, 
I 17, J 19, K 21, L 23, M 25. The last thirteen letters of the alphabet are 
numbered with even numbers. Thus, N 2, 4, P 6, Q 8, R 10, S 12, T 
14, U 16, V 18, W 20, X 22, Y 24, Z 26. And now let us see how the 



109 

books read. The first page of the cover of the blue book — and it is not 
only blue — real Boston blue, but it is a JMazarine blue, (lighter) — contains 
the following in tabular form. Now listen to Know-Notliing readin'^-. 
(Manifestations of intense enjoyment among the Know-Nothings, and of 
interest among the uninitiated, and cries of "go it, old boy.") 1 will o-o it, 
if you will be patient and let me reason with you: 12 IG 6 10 9. 25 6, that 
reads " supreme," 4 10 7 9 10 means " order," 4 11, "of," 14 15 6 " the " 
12 14 1 10, " star," 12 6 12 13 25 9 7, " spangled," 3 1 2 2 9 10, " banner!" 
That is square spelling and square reading. "Supreme Order of the Star 
Spangled Banner." (Cheers, applause, hisses, and manifestations of all 
kinds.) The fourth page of the cover, contains the foUowino- table — 12 6 17 
10 17 14, "spirit," 4,11, "of," '76, "spirit of '76." That is the title 
page and the formulary of the Grand Council of the United States of North 
America, from the press of Damerell & JMoore, No. 16 Devonshire street, 
Boston. Next come the ofticers of the Grand Council. President, (that is 
for the past year, but I beheve it still continues,) James VV. Barker, of 
New York. (Cheers.) Vice President, W. W. Williamson, of Alexandria, 
Va. (Roars of Laughter, cries of "here he is," and "three cheers for 
Williamson.") Corresponding Secretary, Charles D. Deschler, of New 
Brunswick, New Jersey. Recording Secretary, James M. Stevens, of Bal- 
timore. Md. Treasurer, Henry Crane, of Cincinnati, Ohio. The Inside 
Sentinel is John P. Hilton, of Washington, D. C. (Laughter, and cheers 
from Washingtonians in the crowd.) Outside Sentinel, Henry Metz, of 
Detroit, Michigan. Chaplain, Samuel P. Crawford, of Indianapolis, Indi- 
ana. Now, gentlemen, I want to show you their religion. I read from the 
blue book — 

" The organization shall be known by the name of the Grand Council of 
the United States of North America. Its jurisdiction and power shall ex- 
tend to all the states, districts, and territories of the United States of North 
America. A person, to become a meniber of any subordinate Council, 
must be twenty-one years of age. He must believe in the existence of a 
Supreme Being, as the Creator and Preserver of the universe," 

No Christ acknowledged! No Saviour of mankind! No Holy Ghost! 
No heavenly Dove of Grace ! Go, go, you Know-Nothings, to the city of 
Baltimore, and in a certain street there you will see two churches — one is 
inscribed, " Monos Theos" — " to the one God;" on the other is the in- 
scription, "As for us, we preach Christ crucirled — to the Jews a stumblino* 
block, and to the Greeks foolishness." The one inscribed "0 Monos 
Theos" is the Unitarian church; the other, inscribed, "We preach Christ 
crucified," is the Catholic church! (Cries of " good, good," and cheers.) 
Is it — I ask of Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Methodists, and Baptists — is it, 
I ask, for any orthodox Trinitarian Christian church to join an association 
tliat is inscribed, like the Unitarian church at Baltimore, " O Monos Theos" 
—to the one God? Is it for them to join or to countenance an association 
that so lays its religion as to catch men like Theodore Parker and James 
Freeman Clarke ? I put it to all the religious societies — to the Presbyteri- 
ans, the Episcopalians, the Methodists, and the Baptists — whether they mean 
to renounce the divinity of Christ and the operation of the Holy Spirit when 
they give countenance to this secret society, which is inscribed to the one 
God? 

But, gentlemen, these Know-Nothings appeal not only to the religious 
element, but to the political element — not only to the political element, but 
to the agrarian element. Not only do they appeal to Protestant bigotry — not 
only do they ask Protestants to out-Herod Herod, to out Catholic the Catho- 
lics, to out Jesuit the Jesuits by adopting their Machiavellian creed, but they 
appeal to a forlorn party in the state of Virginia — a minority party, broken 



110 

'.'.own at home and disorganized, because their associates have become 
abolitionized at the North — they appeal to them as affording them a house of 
refuge. [Cheers and laughter.] There is a paper published in this town by 
one of the most respectable gentlemen of the state, who some time ago 
published an article which, I must confess, I did not expect to see in print 
from his pen. The Alexandria Gazette, one of the most respectable of the 
Whig papers of the United States, edited by one of the most conservative 
and respectable gentlemen that I know of among my acquaintance, one who 
has been advocating the doctrines and practice of conservatism ever since I 
knew him, is now proposing a fusion between the Know-Nothings and the 
Whig party, simply for the reason that "the Whigs are tired of standing at 
the rack without fodder." [Voice in the crowd " Oh, go along," and 
laughter.] One who used, as I well remember, to denounce corruption and 
the spoils very sweepingly, is now actually maintaining that the Whigs v.'ill 
not and cannot go upon principle any longer and adhere to conservatism, 
because they are tired of waiting for office. [Laughter and cheers.] Not 
only that, but my friend, the editor, has lately pubhshed this short 
article : — 

" We are pleased to see that with regard to Mr. Wise, the Democratic 
candidate for governor, the opposition is generally conducted with entire 
respect to his character as a citizen and a man, and with a full acknowledg- 
ment on all hands of his many excellent personal qualities. The opposition 
do not think he is the best qualified man for the office of governor, but they 
admit his talents. In seeking his defeat, they mainly desire to defeat the 
political organization which he upholds." 

, Remember that, ye Democrats, vvfho have joined with Mr. Snowden in 
upholding the Know-Nothing cause — that the very object of the Whigs in 
joining the Know-Nothing society is to break up the organization to which 
you belong. [Cheers.] You Democrats have these gentlemen in a minority 
out of doors, but the moment they get you into a Know-Nothing lodge, they 
have you in a minority in doors. [Renewed cheers.] But the article- 
goes on : — 

"They contend that, as a former violent opponent of the party, at whose 
head he is now placed, there is too jsiuch political inconsistency to entitle 
him to the position he seeks." 

How then, can Mr. Snowden — how can the conservative Whigs of 
Alexandria, to punish my inconsistency, join hands with Democrats and go 
over to them in Know-Nothing lodges ? [Cheers.] They tell us they can- 
not give the grip in public to the Whigs of the North, because the Northern 
Whigs have become abolitionized. Here are two gentlemen who cannot 
shake hands with one another in our presence — one is a Whig of the North 
and the other a Whig of Alexandria. They cannot any longer keep up their 
Whig organization ; but let the Whig of the north, abolitionised as he is, 
become a Know-Notlnng, and let the Whig of the South, pro-slavery as he 
is, become a Know-IIothing, and then behind the curtain, these gentlemen 
can shake hands and hunny-fuggle with one another. [Much laughter.] 
This is what is called conservatism. This is what is called consistency. 
The article continues : 

"They are resolved to unite in a strong and determined effort to break up 
the present political organization, which directs the destinies and controls 
the action of the state in all its departments. Mr. Wise cannot expect the 
support of those who desire to see this change effected." 

If Mr. Wise cannot expect the support of conservative Whigs, or of any 
Whig, because the desire of the Whig party in joining the Know-Nothings 
is to defeat the Democracy, how can they expect Democrats to join them.? 
But there is a last and worst element which they address, for which they 



Ill 

can, as conscrvatlvos, offer me no excuse, and I come to it boldly. It is tlie 
most difficult and the hardest subject to deal with in public in a slave-holding 
community. Gentlemen, the last constitutional convention of Vir!:,nnia 
betrayed the important i'act to the north, as well as to ourselves, that out of 
the 125,000 voters in the state of Virginia, but 25,000 or 30,000, are slave- 
holdin"- voters. About 1 voter in 5 is a slaveholder. I say it boldly, and 
no man Avill dispute it who has been to Norfolk and Portsmouth, that the last 
and worst element that is appealed to is the agrarian element— appealing to 
the w^hite laborers of the state against the black laborers of the state. (Cheers.) 
Go all over the state and tell me where Know-Nothingism is rankest and 
most violent. [Voice in the crowd, " Dov^n on the wharves," and great 
laughter.] I tell you that you'll not only find it down on the wharves in 
Alc'xandria, as has been said, and well said, in the crowd, but you will find 
it v.-orse than anywhere else around the wharves of Portsmouth and in Ports- 
mouth navy yard. The very men who, for ten years, have been petitioning 
the secretary of the navy to forbid the employment of slave labor in 
Gosport navy yard — the very men who petitioned the last convention to 
frame a new constitution for Virginia, to make it a part of the organic law 
of the state that slaveholders should not allow their slaves to be taught the 
mechanic arts — these are the men who are the very hot-bed of Know- 
Nothingism. 

Voice in the Crowd — Send them to h — 11. 

It is impossible to say what effect these three combined elements are to 
have upon us. I ask the Protestant church, to recur to this religious ele- 
ment, how they expect in future — if they think that Catholicism is not a 
pure and undefiled religion — to succeed in preaching against the Pope and 
Catholics? Where a preacl|^r has risen in the pulpit, in times past, to 
arraign the Pope and the abominations of the church of Ptome, he has been 
regarded as a vital spiritual preacher of Protestantism ; he has been regarded 
as one looking to the spiritual kingdom; but let a preacher now rise and 
preach against the Pope and against Catholicism, and whether he is sincere 
or not, his congregation feels that he is preaching for Know-Nothingism. Why, 
the other day, in Isle of Wight, I saw a man from Canada, or I heard of 
him there, Avho was distributing the Bible to the state of Virginia. Well, 
he may have been the very best colporteur in the world ; he may have been 
a man of as honest intentions as Father Hannell, v.'ho is your travelling dis- 
tributer of the Bible; but he came all the way from Canada down to the 
Isle of Wight to distribute Bibles ? He was asked why he distributed Bibles 
among us ?° Did he take us to be heathen ? Our churches are distributing 
the word. Our bishops are distributing the v/ord. The Bible is found in 
every steamboat saloon, and in every chamber of every hotel in the state. Did 
he take us to be heathen ? Oh, no; he was glad to hear that we had the 
Bible here, but he thought that perhaps he would be doing us great service 
to bripg the Bible, as the Pope and Bishop Kughes wanted to make it a 
sealed book. He was called upon to take his departure, as he was known at 
once to be a Know-Nothing agent. He pretended merely to visit to distri- 
bute the Bible, but the fellow was all the time privately carrying his dark 
lantern and lucifer match in his pocket to apply the test oath. (Laughter.) 
We gave him warning to go hence, and I hope he has gone. So it is with 
the preachers — your Protestant preachers. It is utterly impossible that they 
can make any inroads against the Pope and against Catholics so long as they 
are suspected of political motives — so long as they are suspected of attempt- 
ing to become Prote:4ant popes ; and to seize political power. What wan it, 
I ask them — what corrupted the Roman church ? There was once a time 
when the Bishop of Rosne was the head of a pure, primitive church— when 
he was armed only with eleemosynary, with spiritual and with ecclesiastical 



112 

power. But the very moment he laid his hand upon the imperial purple and 
crown of the Ctesars, that very moment the " whore of Babylon" put on her 
scarlet and began to play her abominations before the eyes of the people. 
She played the^e abominations till the times of Calvin, and Luther, and 
Melancthon and Roger Williams. These great reformers were men who 
did not go into secret places, who did not use dark lanterns, who not 
epeak in whispers, but who thundered in the tones of Whitfield himeelf. 
The moment the Pope laid hold of political power — the moment he became 
part and head- of the civil state — that very moment the state corrupted 
the church, and the churchdestroyed the liberties of the state. So it 
will be here, if, under the pretext of defying the Pope, of proscribing 
Catholicism, you allow your priests — Protestant or other — to lay their 
hands upon political power, and put on the imperial purple and the crown 
of the Cfesars — that very moment the state will corrupt the church, and 
the church will destroy the liberties of the state. As to the proscrip- 
tion of foreigners, let me ask the Know-Nothings themselves to return 
to that passage of the Bible to which I have already referred them. If they 
will take the fifteenth chapter of Second Samuel, and read not only the whole 
verse, but the whole histoiy of Absalom, the traitor, they will find that while 
Absalom — not only native born of the land, but native born of the loins of 
king David — was turning traitor, while the sweet Psalmist of Israel was 
driven towards the wilderness with his "fcllowers, he turned and saw Ittai, 
the Gittite, and said to him : " Wherefore goest thou also with us? Return 
to thy place, and abide with thy king, for thou art a stranger and also an 
exile. Whereas, thou earnest but yesterday^ should I this day make thee go 
up and down with us ? Seeing I go ,whimer I may, return thou and take 
back ihy brethren : Mercy and truth be witl^ thee." And Ittai, the exile 
ancl stranger, who came but yesterday, answered the king and said: "As 
the Lord liveth, and as my lord the king liveth, surely in what place my 
lord the king shall be — whether in death or in life — even there also will thy 
servant be." And remember that the case of Absalom and of Ittai is but 
the prototype of an Arnold and a Lafayette. (Applause.) Who sent you 
alliance ? You tell the people that Catholics never gave aid to civil liberty ; 
that they never yet struck a blow for the freedom of mankind. Who gave 
you alliance against the crown of England ? Who, but that Catholic king, 
Louis XVI ? He sent you, from the court of Versailles, the boy of Wa:-h- 
ington's camp, a foreigner who never Vv'as naturalized, but who bled at the 
redoubt of Yorktown. (Applause.) And not only did Lafayette bleed at 
the redoubt of Yorktown, when an Arnold, a native like Absalom, proved 
traitor, but when the German, DeKalb, fell at the field of Camden, on south- 
ern soil, with fourteen bayonet wounds transfixing his body, and, dying, 
praised the Maryland militia — Gates, the yankee native, ran seventy-five 
miles without looking behind. (Applause and laughter.) And not only that: 
In that intense moment when the declaration of our independence was 
brought into Carpenter's Hall by Rutledge, and Franklin, and Jefferson, and 
laid upon the table — that holy paper, which not only pledged life and honor, 
but fortune, too — realize that moment of intense, of deep, of profound inte- 
rest, when the independence of this land hung upon the acts of men — when, 
one by one, men rose from their seats and went to the table to- pledge lives 
and fortunes and sacred honor ; at length one spare, pale-faced man rose, 
and went and dipped the pen into the ink, and signed " Charles Carroll," 
and when reminded that it might not be known what Charles Carroll it was, 
that it might not be known that it was a Charles Carroll who was pledging a 
principality of fortune, he added the words " of CarroUton." (Cheers.) He 
was a Catholic representative from a Catholic colony. (A voice in the 
crowd — " But he was a native born American.") 



113 

And, sir, before George Washington was born, before Lafayette wielded 
the sword or Charles Carroll the pen for his country, six hundred and forty 
years ago, on the 16th of June, 1214, there was another scene enacted on 
the face of the globe, when the general charter of all charters of freedom 
was gained, when one man — a man called Stephen Langton — swore the 
barons of England, for the people, against the orders of the Pope and against 
the power ofthe king — swore the barons on the high altar of the Catholic 
church at St. Edmundsbury, that they would have Magna Charta or die for 
it. The charter which secures to every one of you to-day trial by jury, 
freedom of the press, freedom of the pen, the confronting of witnesses with 
the accused, and the opening of secret dungeons — that charter was obtained 
by Stephen Langton against the Pope and against the king of England, and 
if you Know-Nothings don't know who Stephen Langton was, you know 
nothing sure enough. (Laughter and cheers.) He was a Catholic Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury. (Renewed cheers.) I come here not to praise the 
Catholics, but I come here to acknowledge historical truths, and to ask of 
Protestants what has heretofore been the pride and boast of Protestants — 
tolerance of opinion in religions faith. (Applause.) All we ask is tolerance. 
All we ask is, that if you hate the Catholic^J because they have proscribed 
heretics, yout won't out-proscribe proscription. If you hate the Catholics 
because they have nunneries and monasteries, and Jesuitical secret orders, 
don't out- Jesuit the Jesuits by going into dark-lantern secret chambers to 
apply test oaths. If you hate the Catholics because you say they encourage 
the Machiavellian expediency of telling lies sometimes, don't swear your- 
selves not to tell the truth. (Cheers.) Here are the oaths — the oaths that 
bind you, under no circumstances to disclose who you are or what you are, j 
and that bind you not only to political, but to soqjal proscription. Here is i 
your book — your Bible — which requires of you to stick up your noticesbe^ ' 
tween midnight and daybreak. (Laughter.) I don't object to secrecy. I 
am a member of a secret order, and I am proud to be a brother Mason ; (loud 
cheers;) and I am at liberty by my order to say, that as to its ends, its pur- 
poses, its designs, Masonry has no secrets. ("Renewed cheering.) Its end, 
its purpose, its aim, is to make a brotherhood of charity amongst men. Its 
end is the end of the Christian law of religion. I know not how any Mason 
can be a Know-Nothing. Masonry binds its members to respect and obey 
the laws of the land in which we live; and when the Constitution of the 
LTnited States declares that no religious test shall be made a qualification for 
office, Masonry dare not interpose by conspiring, in a secret association, to 
attempt to make a religious test a qualification for office. When Virginia 
has an act of religious freedom — an act that is no longer a mere statute law^, 
but is now a part of the organic law. and which says that no man shall be 
burdened for religious opinion's sake — Masonry dare not conspire to burden 
any man for opinion's sake. Masonry has no secrets but the simple tests by 
which it recognizes its brotherhood. It is bound to respect the law and to 
tolerate differences of opinion in religion and politics. I do not complain of 
secrecy, but I complain of secrecy for political objects. What is your ob- 
ject ? It is to, assail the Constitution of the United States, to conspire to 
contradict the Constitution and laws of the land; it is to conspire against the- 
Constitution and laws, and swear men by test oaths — the most odious instru- 
ments of tyranny that intolerance and proscription have ever devised. It is 
not only to proscribe Catholics and foreigners, but it is to _proscribe Protes- 
tants and natives too, who will not unite with you in proscribing Catholics 
and foreigners. It is further than that : It destroys all individuality in the 
man. You bring in your noviciate, you swear him to do — what? To give 
up his conscience, his judgment, his will, to the judgment and the conscience 
and the will of an association of men who are not willing that others should / 
8 



114 

enslave them, but their test oath enslave themselves. And to what are they 
sworn? They are sworn to passive obedience — to non-resistance — to take 
sign and grip. Here is your organization. (Holding up a document.) I 
will not take time to read it ; but I will state the fact that your Grand Na- 
tional Council of the United States is organized by the appointment of thir- 
teen men from each state, a council of thirteen, an oligarchy of thirteen from 
each state, who assemble outside of the state to form the Grand Council of 
the United States, with Mr. Barker, of Wall street, New York, as president. 
Power over original judgment, power over appeal— all power — is concentra- 
ted in that National Council. And has it come to this ? Has Virginia been 
so provincialized in the Union that her sons will consent not to be guided by 
their own individual wills, by their own individual consciences, by their 
own individual judgments, but consent to qe sworn by a test oath, to take a 
sign which comes from outside the state, and which may be passed to you 
from Mr. Barker, of New York. 

-«-- When that is submitted to by the people of Virginia, no longer call your- 
selves a free, sovereign, and independent state. You are subdued — you are 
conquered — you are provincialized — you have. lost your individuality. And 
not only are these appliances brought to bear upon us, but, gentlemen, em- 
missaries are everywhere at work. The New York Herald has taken up 
this election, and has proclaimed to the world that it is arranged in New 
York already, whence the sign will come, I suppose, that Mr. Wise is to be 
defeated in Virginia. Bennett, the political Fagan, the cross-eyed, whining 
demon of politics, who has made himself a millionaire by black mail — Ben- 
nett, whose paper I never would allow to come into my family — Bennett, 
who has fed the vultures with the very lambs of society — the man who has 
regarded no purity, no sanctity, nothing that was holy or sacred — Bennett 
has dogged me in this canvass, without an open competitor, with his reporter 
for his paper — sending here that instrument to catch the words of the Vir- 
ginia stump — our own domestic stump — in order that he might travesty 
and misrepresent and belie. And, too, at this mom.cnt, I have to endure 
that the Whig presses of the state have forgotten Avhat they owe to the 
state — not to me — so far as to publish, not only his reports, but his cards, 
which insult the state as well as me.. That is tolerated. T care nothing 
about that minion of the Herald. I am looking at higher game. I am look- 
ing at the Absaloms, at the Arnolds, at the traitors of the north, who, wielding 
the power of the Herald, have thought to put me down. And I suppose 
the Know-Nothings are very confident that they will succeed. Let me 
tell them that I would as lief die a martyr in this cause as in any other 
cause. Let me say to them, where you have fastened together Whigs and 
Know-Nothings and Democrats, when you get those who are blindly leaving 
their party to place themselves in machinery — those who are either seeking 
office or are disappointed in not getting office — and when you have thus put 
me down, when you have crushed the slaveholding power in my election, 
why then follows a total revolution — a social and political revolution, not 
only in the state of Virginia, but in the whole south. Gentlemen, what is 
to follow from this ? Where is it to end? The}' have swept the north. 
They have nine governors. They claim that they have got a majority 
elected to (he next Hoiise of Representatives. They are now trying to ob- 
tain, by the end of the next three years, a majority in the Senate of the 
United States ; but if I am elected governor of the state of Virginia, what 
will be the state of things ? The next Congress will assemble on the first 
Monday in December next. If I be elected governor of the state of Vir- 
ginia, I shall be sworn in on the first of January next. And now I tell you 
what will be the consequence. When I take the oath to support the consti- 
tution of the state of Virginia, I will remember me that I will be invested 



115 

• 

with the militia power of the state of Virginia, to repel invasion and to sup- 
press insurrection. No man loves and adores the Union of this land more 
than I do. I have been taught to venerate and to cherish the Union of these 
states. It is the holiest of all holy things. I would gladly give my life, my 
blood, as a sacrifice to save it if required. But I know that the main pillars 
of the Union, the main props and supporters of this palladium, are the pil- 
lars of state rights and state sovereignty. (Applause.) If you place me 
with your sword in hand by that graat pillar of Virginia sovereignty, I pro- 
mise you to bear and forbear to the last extremity. I will suffer much, suffer 
long, "suffer almost anything but dishonor. UBut it is, in my estimation, with 
the union of the states as it is with the union of matrimony. You may suffer 
almost anything except dishonor; but when honor is touched the union must 
be dissolved. (Loud and prolonged cheering.) I will not say that. I take 
back the words. I will not allow myself to contemplate a dissolution of the 
Union. (Renewed cheering.) No, we will still try to save it. But when 
the worst comes to the worst, if compelled to draw the sword of Virginia, I 
will draw it; and by the gods of the state and her holy altars, if I am com- 
pelled to draw it, I will flesh it or it shall pierce my body. (Enthusiastic 
cheering.) And I tell you more : we have got abolitionists in this state. 
(Voice in the crowd — " D — n the Know-Nothings," and great laughter.) If 
I should have to move, some of the first, I fear, against whom I should have 
to act, would be some within our own limi|ts. But if forced to fight, I will 
not confine myself to the state of Vir^iniaJ My motto will be — 

Woe to the coward that ever he was born, 

That did not draw the sword before he blew tlie horn. (Loud cheers.) 

Gentlemen, I was in a very poor plight to speak to you to-night. Perhaps 
I have spoken already too long, although I have not said half what I would 
say to you, or produced half the evidence which I have with me. All I 
have to say to the Democracy is, that all you want is active, earnest organi- 
zation. (Cheers.) Remember that if these Know-Nothings hold together, 
the}^ are sworn, compact committees of vigilance. Go to work, then. Or- 
ganize actively everywhere. Appoint your vigilance committees, but take ■ 
especial care that no Know-Nothings are, secretly and unknown to you, upon 
them. (Cheers.) Be prepared. I have gone through most of eastern Virginia, 
and in spite of their vaunting I defy them to defeat me. (Great cheering.) 
There are Indians in the bush, but I'll whack on the bayonet, and lunge at 
every shrub in the state, till I drive them out. (Renewed and enthusiastic 
cheering.) I tell therar4istinctly there shall be no compromise, no parley. I 
will come to no terms, t They^shall either crush me or I will crush them in 
this state. (Great applause.)-! Of the conscientious and considerate and 
conservative men of the Whig party, I would ask where they can find any- 
thing in form, shape, tendency or result, that promises so much destructive- 
ness as Know-Nothingism ? I challenge them to compare Know-Nothingism 
with Democracy, and to tell me what it is in Democracy that they cannot touch 
iii comparison with Know-Nothingism. I will say that I do expect that the 
Democratic nominations in this election will gain the support of some of the 
brightest jewels of the Whig party in the state. (Cheers and laughter.) I 
hail them and extend to them the right hand of fellowship; and I believe 
that if Know-Nothingism can claim no other good deed, it will at least effect 
a reorganization of the Democratic party of the state of Virginia upon 
higher ground, more affiliated, stronger and abler, better to serve itself and 
the countrj^ than it has been for the last twenty-five years. Let them, then, 
boast of their 30,000 and 40,000 and 50,000 majorities. We will take our 
old and usual majority — I will be satisfied with that. (Cheers and laughter.) 



116 

And to obtain it, I would not flatter you, the people, " if you were Neptune, 
for his trident, or Jove for his power to thunder." I will deceive no man ; 
I will hunny-fuggle no voter. (Laughter.) I will condescend to nothing unbe- 
coming a gentleman. I will conduct this canvass throughout in such a man- 
ner as will command your respect and preserve my own self-respect. God 
grant that I may live through the campaign. If I continue to speak as I 
have been doing, I doubt very much whether I can survive it. But, "sink 
or swim, live or die,'' I will do my duty ; and "if Rome falls, I am inno- 

cent." 

Mr. Wise then retired, amidst enthusiastic cheering, and the meeting at 
once dispersed. 



DISTINGUISHED DEMOCRATIC ORATORS OF THE CANVASS. 

Among other distinguished gentlemen who took the stump in the eastern 
part of the State, during the campaign, were the following. Hon. Shelton F. 
Leake, of Madison ; Messrs. James Lyons, and Patrick H. Aylett, of Richmond, 
(this gentleman especially deserves the thanks of the Democracy for his arduous 
labours and repeated dissections of Know Nothingism); Maj. James Garland, 
and Charles Irving, of Lynchburg; Roger A. Pryor, of the Richmond Enqui- 
rer; A. D. Banks, of the Southside Democrat; R. K. Meade, of Petersburg; 
Col. William M. Howerton, of Halifax ; Senator James M. Mason, of Frede- 
rick ; Dr. Clement R. Harris, of Augusta; William M. Treadway, of Pittsyl- 
vania ; Henry L. Hopkins, of Powhatan, late Speaker of the House of Dele- 
gates; William Cabell Flournoy, of Prince Edward; and others. 

In the western portion of the State, very great and arduous services were 
rendered. Conspicuous among the Democratic speakers, was Mr. Elisha W. 
McComas, who made an active and most successful tour through almost the 
entire west. Ex-Governor John B. Floyd, of Washington county, did herculean 
service, and, by his judicious arrangements for the canvass in his district, pro- 
duced a majority there unprecedented in the political annals of " Little Tennes. 
see." In tbe northwest, conspicuous among the speakers, were Hon. Sherrard 
Clemens, of Wheeling, and Mr. Benj. W. Jackson, of Pleasants county. In 
the Valley, Col. Wra. H. Harman, of Augusta, and James W. Massie, of 
Rockbridge, were very able and efficient. 

The Examiner had the following notice of the canvass in that important dis. 
trict of the State — " Little Tennessee." 

Glorious Little Tennessee. — We hear daily more and more encouraging 
tidings from the Democnxcy of this Heart of Midlothian. In spi e of the fal- 
lacious asseverations of the Know Nothings to the contrary. Little Tennessee 
will give the Democratic ticket a majority of two thousand at the very lowest 
figure. McMuLLiN will beat both bis Know Nothing competitors — Trigg and 
Martin — by a large majority. 

The services of Mr. Wm. H. Cook, of Carroll county, have been efficient and 
invaluable in the canvass. He has met Trigg twice on the stump in a manner 
that neither his poor victim nor the people who witnessed the onslaught 
will ever forget. He has had Carroll and Grayson in his especial keeping, and 
the result in those two counties will attest the effectiveness of his labors in the 
Democratic cause. 



117 

Nor has Col. Ben. Rush Floyd, of Wytheville, allowed the imperative calls 
of his profession to interfere with his duty as a Democrat. His speeches at 
Wytheville are pronounced the most powerful ever delivered in that county, 
and has told with crushing effect upoa the Know Nothing cause. The election 
of Graham, in Wythe, is set down as a fixed fact. 

Thos. L. Preston, Esq., has surpri.sed his warmest admirers by the ability 
and eloquence of his speeches in denunciation of Know Nothingism. He has 
gone from precinct to precinct, and man to man, crying aloud and sparing not. 
The Order boasted that they had secured the county and fettered its voters be- 
fore the canvass commenced ; but Mr. Piieston has knocked the scales from 
the eyes of the people, broken up the plans of the enemy, and completely de- 
stroyed the work of the Order. His election, in Smyth, we arc assured, is a 
certain event. 

But what shall we say of that brave man — that fearless champion of Democ- 
racy through evil and through good report — who can neither be driven by trea- 
chery nor seduced by flattery from the cause in which he was born and reared, 
for which he has lived and fought, and which has never yet failed or faltered in 
his district when he was in the field — the Achilles of the Southwest — John 
B. Floyd ? 

The secret Order had already stolen a march upon the Democracy in Wash- 
ington county. They already boasted to have captured and bound and fettered, 
by oaths and pledges, a majority of the freemen of the county. The Demo- 
crats were taken by surprise, and had already been surrounded before they knew 
that the prowling enemy was near them. They turned to Floyd, and appealed 
to hir^, with odds already counted against them, to take the field and attack the 
enemy in his fortifications. With a noble unselfishness he consented to be a 
candidate for an office he did not want. He took the stump, spoke in every 
nook and corner, saw every man, and addressed every dozen men in the county. 
He burst up lodges, and scattered dismay and consternation among the follow- 
ers of the dark kntern. He has redeemed the county by a series of speeches 
surpassing even himself in ability and power, and, as a Whig adversary, distin- 
guished for intelligence, and no friend of Mr. Floyd, says, never surpassed be- 
fore in any political contest in this country. He has crushed the puny adver- 
saries that have been pitted against him — as the president of a Know Nothing 
council and adversary tells it, taking them by couples, and knocking their block 
heads together, and jarring out every grain of sense they ever contained. 

Having secured his own county, he has gone into the unvisited counties of 
Lee and Scott, crushing out the Order by his ponderous blows, and speaking 
everywhere with a power never before known there. In Scott, last Monday 
week, he spoke with peculiar ability, and with such effect that an old Methodist 
minister exclaimed, as he closed, " Grod never made the man who- ever delivered 
such a speech as that." 

Amongst the distinguished Whigs who took ground against Know Nothingism, 
and acted with the Democracy, were the following : Thomas J. Michie, of 
Staunton; Judge Robertson, of Richmond; John Y. Gholson, of Petersburg; 
and Maj. John T. L. Preston, of the Virginia Military Institute. 

We here insert the letter of Mr. Michie, as distinguished for its ability and 
the influence it exerted over the popular mind. 

MR. MICHIE'S LETTER. 

Staunton, April 9th, 1855. 

My Dear Sir: — On my return to-day from Shenandoah, where I had been 
for the last week, attending a session of the Circuit Court of that county, I re- 



118 

ceived your kind and flattering invitation to address the people of Eicbmond 
City. 

Permit me to tender to yourself and the committee from whom it emanated, 
my grateful thanks for the honor you have done me. But I fear that constant 
and unavoidable professional engagements, will place it out of my power to 
visit Richmond between this time and the 4th Thursday in May. On the I'lth 
inst., I must be in Rockbridge, and thence to Highland, this place, and Alber- 
marle, in rapid succession. Nothing, I assure ynu, would give me more plea- 
sure than to address the intelligent people of Richmond, on the interesting 
questions of the present canvass — to tell them how blighting to the free spirit 
of our country the secret mystery of Know Nothingism must prove — how de- 
moralizing it will be to our own children, the hitherto high-minded, open- 
hearted, bold youths of Virginia, to be educated in the sneaking arts of secrecy 
and espionage — to be taught by their fathers to spy out all the political actions 
of their fellow men. and yet, to keep their own actions and " objects," in refe- 
rence to matters which necessarily concern all, a profound secret — to publish 
platforms of pretended principles, suited to every latitude and every taste, for 
the purpose of gaining proselytes, while they feel the degrading consciousness 
that they are prohibited, by horrible oaths, from ever revealing their real objects 
and principles outside of their Order — and while a disgusted world is forced to 
conclude, either that their platforms are filled with false professions, intended to 
mislead, or that those who publish them are perjured. 

"Has any party a right to political secrets ? In private associations men may 
conceal matters which concern themselves alone. Rut politics, relating neces- 
sarily to the affairs or conduct of a government, in which every citizen has an 
equal stake, how can a party be tolerated in withholding, from any portion of 
our citizens, information on a subject which vitally concerns every one of them ? 
In a small partnership, if a portion of the partners were to conceal from the 
rest their designs in reference to the social funds, their associates so excluded, 
would be justified in forming a conclusion of dishonesty, and a- court of justice 
would interfere. In the ordinary intercourse of life, an honest man of ordinary 
humanity, possessed of a secret which concerns his neighbor's interests, feels 
bound by a high moral obligation to disclose it to him whom it interests. Yet 
here is a political party intermeddling in the dark with the affairs of govern- 
ment, which involve your and my life, liberty and property, and those of our 
children, and of millions of others, and yet they coolly refuse to let us know 
what their objects are until we shall be informed by such result as they may 
hereafter produce. By their own showing they are enemies of popular govern- 
ment — for in such a government the whole community participates. 

But they show their enmity in various other forms. They practically deny 
the capacity of the people to govern, and therefore establish aristocratic coun- 
cils, with a great consolidating and controlling head, located most fitly, some- 
where near " the five points" in the city of New York. Power with them, in- 
stead of being vested in the people and emanating from them, is vested in these 
aristocratic councils. The theory of our government requires an appeal from 
aristocracy to the people. Know Nothingism reverses that theory, by providing 
in all cases an appeal from the people to aristocracy. 

If the people had capacity for self-government, this self-styled American 
(quaere. Aboriginal?) party deny their honesty. Therefore, they are never 
trusted except under oath. And again, while the spirit of our institutions re- 
quires every citizen to exercise his own best judgment in voting for all officers 
of government — this wonderful invention of Yankeedom requires him to bind 
himself by solemn oath, not to exercise his own judgment at all, but to give his 
vote as the majority of a caucus, itself subservient to the mandate of a supe- 
rior caucus, may order. These are startling novelties to an American ear. 
V Yet, Know Nothingism, bold in this respect alone, in all others skulking, 



119 

'\ 

denying its name, denying its association, refusing to make known its ob-'^ 
jects, hiding in dark caverns with bats and owls, denounces all as anti- 
American who will not adopt its dogmas ! I should like to discuss and 
dissect the monster, not only under the preceding head, but many others, and 
especially its Federalism. I should like to show the people of Kichmond, and 
the whole South, the cunning device of the Know Nothing nominee for Gover- 
nor, int-tilled into him, no doubt, by the same masters under whom he learned 
his " Americanism," by which he asks the people of Virginia to deprive them- 
selves of all ground of resistance hereafter, to the Northern plan of interven- 
tion in our domestic affairs — by intervening in a crusade against Catholics and 
foreieners, not because she is suffering any inconvenience from them herself, but/' 
in order to rid her sister States of the nuisance. 

But I console myself, under my inability to obey ynur call, by the reflection 
that if I went, it would only contribute the feeble light of a candle, to that 
glorious sun which has shone and which continues to shine among you and en- 
lighten you till the day of election. Wise and Douglas, and a host of others, 
have told you more than I can tell. But as I have been a Whig— only say for 
nie to my old Whig friends, that I have looked carefully under the cloak of 
Know Nothingism— have lifted with a daring hand the veil that covered 
the face of the Prophet Sam, and satisfied myself well that it is not Whig- 
gery, as I had always understood it, and as I knew it was understood and pro- 
fessed by thousands of honest and patriotic men, but monstnim liorrenduin in- 
fonni imjens itni lumen redempfum. Yes, as blind as a bat, and as dark as 
Erebus. Let them beware of it, as they love their lives and high reputation. 
History informs us of many secret political parties, but not of one that I re- 
member, which has not been damned by impartial posterity. This party has 
much besides its secrecy to give it an earlier and deeper condemnation than that 
which has fallen to the lot of its predecessors. If the Democratic party should 
follow its lead, what a Hell upon earth their underground fight would make, 
yet it would plead example, and the responsibility would be Sam's. 

With high regard, 

THOS. J. MICHIE. 



VIRGINIA DEMOCRATIC ORGANIZATION. 

The Democratic party, not deeming it wise to despise their secret foe, and 
wishing to hand down to their children the political escutcheon of their State 
untarnished, thought it provident and well to organise efficiently, in order to .go 
into a contest with unbroken column and solid phalanx. Accordingly their 
executive committee for the State met, Feb. 12th, and appointed the following 
congressional, senatorial and county electors. 

CONGRESSIONAL ELECTOES. 

First Congressional District — Ro. L. Montague of Middlesex. 

Second District — Mordecai Cooke of Norfolk City. 

Third District— P. H. Aylett of Richmond City. 

Fourth District — R. K. Meade of Petersburg. 

Fifth District — A. Hughes Dillard of Henry. 

Sixth District — Wm. J. Ptobertson of Albemarle. 

Seventh District — Benj. H. Berry of Alexandria. 



•120 

Eighth District— Thos. M. Isbell of Jefferson. 

Ninth District— Geo. E. Deneale of Rockingham. 
Tenth District— Sherrard Clemens of Wheeling. 
Eleventh District— Benj. W. Jackson of Wood. 
Twelfth District— A. A. Chapman of Marion. 
Thirteenth District— Jno. B. Floyd of Washington. 

SENATORIAL ELECTORS. 

1st Senatorial District— L. J. Bell of Accomac. 

2fi do. Hunter Woodis of Norfolk Citj. 

3d do. S. Wheeler of Norfolk County. 

.' 4th do. James F. Crocker of Isle of Wight. 

^^^ do. E. W. Massenburg of Southampton. 

6th do. Thos. Wallace of Petersburg. 

^th do. Lewis E. Harvie of Amelia. 

Sth do. Alex. Jones of Chesterfield. 

■ 9th do. Wm. C. Flournoy of Prince Edward. 

lOfc^ do. Wra. B. Baskervill of Mecklenburg, 

lltti do. J. Red 1 Smith of Pittsylvania. 

12th do. Wm. M. Howerton of Halifax. 

13th do. Arch'd Stuart of Patrick. 

14th do. Austin M. Trible of Bedford. 

I5th do. Tho.<!. K. Kirkpatriek of Lynchburg. 

16th do. W. R. C. Douglas of New Kent. 

17th do. John B. Young of Henrico. 

18th do. Geo. W. Randolph of Richmond City. 

19th do. John T. Seawell of Gloucester. 

20th do. R. Claybrook of Northumberland. 

21st do. Wm. R. Aylett of King William. 

22d do. Eustace Conway of Spottsylvania. 

23d do. Eppa Hunton of Prince William. 

24th do. David Funsten of Alexandria. 

25th do, Jno. W. Minor of Loudoun. 

26th do. J. Y. Menifee of Rappahannock. 

27th do. A. R. Blakey of Madison. 

28th do. Burrell Snead of Albemarle. 

29th do. W. D. Leake of Goochland. 

30th do. B. M. Dewitt of Nelson. 

31st do. AVm. Lucas of Jefferson. 

32nd do. G. T. Barbee of Hardy. 

.33d do. Thos. T. Fauntleroy of Frederick. 

34th do. J. S. Calvert of Shenandoah. 

35th do. John T. Harris of Rockingham. 

36th do. Wm. H. Harman of Augusta. 

37th do. Jas. W. Massie of Rockbridge. 

38th «> do. Oliver H. Gray of Botetourt. 

39th do. Wm. H. Cook of Carroll. 

40th do. G. W. G. Browne of Tazewell. 

4l8t do. Isaac J. Leftwich of Wythe. 

42d do. Sam'l. V. Fulkerson of Lee. 

43d do. T. Dunn English of Logan. 

44tb do. R. F. Dennis of Greenbrier. 

45th do. Jeremiah Wellman of Wayne. 

46th do. A. J. Smith of Harrison. 

47th do. James Neeson of Marion. 



121 



48th Senatorial District— Benj. Bassell, Jr., of Upshur. 
49th do. Win. G. Brown of Preston. 

50ch do. Campbell Tarr, Jr., of Brooke. 

COUNTY ELECTORS. 

Arcomac — J. W. H. Parkor. 
A/bettinrle—Bi: W. G. Rogers. 
Alexandria — George L. Gordon. 
AJlcijhani/ and Bath — Samuel Carpenter. 
Amelia — Wra. Gregory. 
Nottoicay — Thomas Kowlett. 
Amherst — Dr. S. C. Gibson, 
Appomattox — S. D. McDearmon. 
Auynsta — James H. Skinner. 
Barbour — A. G. Keger. 
Bedford — Samuel G- Davis. 
Berkeley — M. S. Grantham. 
Botetourt— Ji. F. Miller. 
Oraiy—Ko. M. Wiley. 
Braxton and A^icholas — Jonathan Koiner. 
Brooke — Wm. DeCamps. 
Hancock — Tlios. Bambrick. 
Bruv.ncick — Robt. D. Turnbull. 
Buckinijharn—E. W. Hubard. 
Cabell— Feter C Buffingtou. 
Campbell— ^Ym. T. Yancey. 
Caroline — Jno. Washington. • 
Carroll — Jno. Carroll. 
Charles Citj/, ~) 

James City, and ',- E. Waddill and H. T. Jones. 
Neio Kent, ) 

Charlotte— Wm. H. Dennis. 
Chesterfield — Alex. Cogbill. 
Clarke— E. W. Massie. 
Culpeper — Jno. W. Bell. 
Cumberland, and \ Creed D. Coleman. 
Poxvhatan, ] Henry L. Hopkins. 

Din loiddie — James Boisseau. 
Doddridge and Tyler — Chapman J. Stewart. 
Elizabeth City — ^ James B. Hope. 
Warwick — [Wra. G. Young. 

York — { J. B. Cosnahan. 

Williamsburgh — J Talbot Sweeney. 
Essex — ) J. M. Matthews. 

King and Queen — ) J. M. Jeffries. 
Fairfax — Jno. Powell. 
Fauquier — Silas B. Hunter. 
Fayette and. Raleigh — Aaron Stockton. 
Floyd — Harvey Deskins. 
Fluvanna — Ro. H. Poore. 
Franklin — Wm. H. Edwards. 
Frederick — F. M. Holladay. 
Giles — James Johnson. 
Gilmer — Sam'l L. Hays. 
Wirt—n. S. Brown. 



122 

GIoiiceMer — Wra. E. Taliaferro. 
Goochland— W. W. Cosby. 
Grayson — Sam'l McCainant. 
Green and ] Wvatt S. Beazley. 
Orange — J Jno, Welch. 
Greensville and ] 0. A. Claiborne. 
Sussex — I Richmond F. Dillard. 

Hal'ifax — Woodson Hughes. 
Hampshire— K. W. McDonald; Jr. 
Hanover — Edw'd W. Morris. 
Hardy— 3. F. W. Allen. 
Harrison — llobt. Johnston. 
Henrico — Dan'i E. Gardner. 
Henry — Geo. Ilairston. 
Highland — Adam Stephenson, Jr. 
Isle of Wight— Q. B. Hadeu. 
JacJiwn — H. Fitzhue, Jr. 
Jefferson — S. Iv. Donavin. 
Kanaii'ha — Jno. A. Warth. 

King George and Stafford — Chas. Mason, Jno. C. Moncure. 
King William— Wm. Hill. 

Lancaster and N'orthumhcrland — Addison Hall. 
Lee — S. S. Slemp. 
Lewis — Jno. Brannon. 

Logan, Boone and Wyoming— '^t. Clair Ballard, James Shannon. 
Louisa — Pv,. B. Waddy. 
Loudoun — Geo. Rust. 
Lunexdmry — Wm. J. Neblitt. 
Madison — Thos. J. Humphreys. 
Marion — Wm. J. Willey. 
Marshall— '^^x%\^ W. Price. 
J/asrw— John Green Newman. 

Matthews and Middlesex — Alcx'r K. Sheppard, Geo. L Nicolson. 
MecklenLurg—M&r\i Alexander, Jr. 
3Iercer— Geo. W. Peai'is. 
Monongalia — Dr. M. Dent. 
Monrte—li^&i\i'\ Harrison. 
Montgomery — James C. Taylor. 
3Iorgan — Peter Djche. 
JVansemond — H. H. Kelly. 
M'lson — Dr. L. N. Ligon. 
Norfolk City— Geo. Blow. 
Norfolk County — Tapley Portlock. 
Northampton— Myers W. Fisher. 
Hagc — Andrew Keysey. 
Ohio— John T. Russell. 
Patrick — Edward Tatera. 
Pendleton — A. S. Norm en t. 
Petersburg — Francis E. Rives. 
Pittsylvania — Walter Coles, Jr. 
Pleasants and Ritchie— B.. C. Creel, L. A. Phelps. 
Pocahontas — J. S. Bradford. 
Preston— 3. A. F. Martin. 

Prince Edward, Prince George and Surry — Sam'l C Anderson, Thomas H. 
Daniel, Dr. M. Q. Holt. 

Princess Anne — E. H. Herbert. 



123 

Prince William — Chas E. Sinclair. 

Pulaski— 1\. M. Craia:. 

Putnam — Dan'i B. Washington. 

Randolph — Sam'l Crane. 

Rappaliannoch — Rob't S. Yass. 

PJrhmond Oit^—Wm. V. Watson. 

Richmond County and TFcsi!morc?a?u7— Henrj T. Garnett. 

Roanoke — Wni. M. Cook. 

Rorkhridgc — James B. Dorman. 

Rockivfjham — E. A Sbands. 

Russell — George Cowan. 

Sroft — H. A. Morrison. 

iShenandoaii — Sam'l. C. Williams. 

Smyth — Hiram A. Greaver. 

Soidhamjiton — Francis ilidley. 

Spotsylvania — Gabriel Johnson. 

Taylor— 3. T. Curry. 

Tazetoell—^^m. P. Cecil. 

Upshur — Rich'd L. Brown. 

^¥arren — Hanson Dorsey. 

Washington — Isaac B. Durua. 

Wayne — Jos. J. Mansfield. 

Wd?:el — Presley Martin. 

Wood — John Spencer. 

Wythe — Alex. Matthews. 

On motion of Mr. Hughes, the following resolution was adopted : 

Resolved, That this committee recommends that meetings of the party be 
called in each of the election districts of the counties, at the earliest practicable 
day, for the purpose of appointing vigilance committees for the election districts, 
and that each of such districts "appoint two members of a general executive 
committee for the county, and that the electors for the counties be requested to 
aid in promoting the object of this resolution. 

JOHN RUTHERFOORD, Chairman. 

Wm. F. Ritchie, Secr'y. 



At a subsequent meeting they adopted the following address : 
^jTo the People of Yirginiaj^ 

Fellow citizens : The Democratic State Rights Republican party have presen- 
ted to you their candidates for the Executive oflSces, which are to be filled by 
your election, on the fourth Thursday in May next. Those candidates have 
been selected by our usual organization, as faithful representatives of the prin- 
ciples of our party, and as men eminently qualified to perform all the duties of 
the high places for which they are proposed. Recognizing the vital importance 
of the'^result of the approaching elections to our party and to our country, 'Jhe 
"State Democratic Executive Committee" make an earnest appeal.for your co- 
operation in the contest which now engages the attention of the whole Uniom 

Our party had its origin in the earliest days of the present Confederacy. 
When the Constitution was first put in, operation, two antagonistic parties strug- 
gled for ascendancy. One sought to confine the Federal Government within 
the strict and defined limits of the Constitution, — avoiding the exercise of all 
doubtful powers, and aiming only at those objects which the framers of the 



124 

Constitution had designated in unequivocal terms as legitimate to the Central 
Government. This party exacted an unhesitating homage to the wisdom of the 
august authors of that instrument, and sought to administer the government in 
rigid conformity with the written provisions of the Constitution. The other 
party sought, by a latitudinarian construction of the Constitution, to obtain in 
the actual administration of the Federal Grovernmeut all tlie power which, in 
the judgment of those in authority, it might be expedient to exercise. This 
characteristic division has continued to separate the Democratic party from the 
old Federal party, and, since its overthrow, from the various parties that have 
been in opposition to the Democracy. 

That the Democratic party is orgauiz.'d upon the true principles of the Con- 
stitution, is signally demonstrated 'by the fact, that it is the only party which 
has maintained a permanent existence coeval with our present Constitutional 
system. The history of our party is s» fortunately identified with the history 
of our country, that the prosperity and glory of the one have been coincident 
with the success of the other. The fact that its leading measures are now in 
full operation, and have been sanctioned repeatedly by the approval of the coun- 
try, and that no open organization now opposes them, stamps it as the constitu- 
tional party of the Union, and renders it unnecessary to set out her in detail its 
principles, already so familiar to the people of Virginia. 

In the career of its history, the Democratic party has had to encounter the op- 
position organized in different forms, and bearing different designations. So 
far, it has overpowered all resistance, and annihilated the national organizations 
that have opposed it. The Whig party, which for some years past has combined 
the elements of antagonism to Democracy, has apparently succumbed. The 
opposition seems once more to be arraying itself in new forms and under new names. 
Taught by past experience, those who oppose the Democratic party dare not 
risk themselves any longer upon a fair comparison of principle and policy before 
an enlightened popular judgment. We have to meet, in the impending canvass, 
a party which avoids an open encounter, and withdraws from public observation 
its discussions of political topics and its deliberations upon public affairs. This 
new party artfully adapts its appeals for votaries to the national and religious 
prejudices of the country, while it proposes to retain, by the most rigid and 
imposing party discipline, those who may be enticed into its ranks. If it suc- 
ceeds in the effort to obtain control over the Federal Government, it must use 
Its powers for purposes not now disclosed — perhaps not contemplated by many 
of its adherents,; It must have its measures upon the great subjects which are 
so frequently agitated in Congress— the Tariff, the Finances, the Public Lands, 
Internal Improvements and the Constitutional Rights of the slaveholders. Ifc 
can have no measures of material importance relating to the avowed objects of 
its organization — the immigrant and Catholic population. If it goes into power, 
It goes with purposes unavowed and unknown on tho.se great subjects concern- 
ing which its action may be of the last consequence, while it flatters the public 
prejudices respecting subjects upon which it can really accomplish little or 
nothing. 

The Federal Government, with all its departments combined, can apply no 
eflfective remedy for the alleged evils incident to the residence of the immi- 
grant population within our limits. The naturalization laws may be amended 
or repealed. But irrespective of those laws, the most valuable privileges may 
still be granted to the alien by the State Governments. The right of re'sidence, 
the right to acquire and hold lands, and the right of suffrage, may all be be- 
stowed upon the alien by the State authorities, without regard being had to the 
naturalization laws. The power to refuse residence to the immigrant population 
appropriately belongs to the State governments. The power of the Federal Go- 
vernment to expel any portion of the alien population, whose residence is per- 
mitted by the State Government, was indignantly repelled by the Republican 



125 

party in 1798. The celebrated alien law provided for the expulsion of a por- 
tion of the resident aliens. Both Virginia and Kentucky denounced the law 
as an unconstitutional usurpation. In the address to the people of Virginia 
accompanying the resolutions of 1798, it is emphatically declared that " there 
is nothini' in the Constitution distinguishing between the power of a State to 
permit the residence of natives and aliens. It is, therefore, a right originally pos- 
sessed and never surrendered by the respective States, and which is rendered 
dear and valuable to Virginia, because it is assailed through the bosom of the 
Constitution, and because her peculiar situation renders the easy admission of 
artizans and laborers an interest of vast importance to her." The fourth Ken- 
tucky Resolution of 1798 — drawn by Mr. Jefferson — asserts " that alien friends 
are under the jurisdiction and protection of the laws of the State wherein they 
are : that no power over them has been delegated to the United States, nor pro- 
hibited to the individual States, distinct from their power over citizens." Mr. 
Madison's Report of 1799 maintains similar positions. It is presumed that 
this exposition of the Constitutional powers of the State and Federal Govern- 
ments, over this subject, will not be questioned in Virginia at this day. 
Each State has the exclusive right to determine for itself, to what extent the 
residence of alien immigrants in its limits shall be permitted. The Govern- 
ments of the respective States alone have the right to refuse residence to such 
of the immigrant population as may be considered objectionable by them. 
While some of the advocates of a latitudinarian construction of the Federal au- 
thority contend that the power of the States over the admission of aliens is 
limited, in certain respects, by the power of the General Government to regu- 
late commerce, the absolute power of the States to exclude alien paupers and 
convicts is universally conceded. The power to permit or refuse residence to 
objectionable aliens belonging thus appropriately to the States, the subject is 
beyond the control of the Federal Government, and affords no legitimate object 
for the organization of a national party. 

The right to acquire and hold real estate, and the right of suffrage, are equal- 
ly subject to State authority. The powers of the States over these subjects 
have been too often exercised and too generally admitted to need any discussion 
at this time. Probably all the States permit resident aliens to acquire and hold 
real estate prior to naturalization, — Virginia certainly does. Some of the States 
confer the right of suffrage upon aliens who have declared their intention to 
become citizens, while others require them to be fully naturalized before they 
are allowed to vote. The whole subject of suffrage is exclusively regulated by 
the State constitutions. It may be confined to native-born citizens, or it may 
be extended to all resident aliens, at the sole discretion of the State sovereign- 
ties. The naturalization laws affect the subject only so far as the State consti- 
tutions may direct. It is wholly impracticable for the Federal Government to 
control the right of suffrage through any laws which it would enact. 

Those who seek to curtail the privileges enjoyed by the immigrant population 
can accomplish no essential object through the agency of the Federal Govern- 
ment. So long as the alien enjoys, under the State government, the right of 
residence, the right to acquire and hold property, and the right of suffrage, he 
can experience but little inconvenience from the want of the few additional priv- 
ileges which full and formal citizenship would confer. The only appropriate 
theatre for the operations of a party, organized to effect the professed objects of 
Know-Nothingism, is to be found in the States where the immigrant population 
abounds, and where the alleged evils of foreignism may exist. Those evils 
are essentially local, and can be properly remedied only by the local authorities. 
They afford the appropriate subject for municipal and police regulations. Five- 
sixths of the foreign born population of the United States are resident in the 
non-slaveholding States, and even there nearly one-half of it is accumulated 
in the cities. The whole of this population in the United States numbers 



126 

2,224,648. Of that number, only 43,531 are in the Southern States, with a 
native white population of 2,342,255, and 105,335 in the Southwestern States, 
with a native white population of 1,973,531. A considerable proportion of 
this class of our population in the slaveholding, as in the non-slaveholding 
States, are congregated in the cities. These facts strongly display how singu- 
larly local must be the alleged evils of foreignism. A full investigation, per- 
haps, mi^ht show that the real evils (if such there are) are confined to the 
cities, which, according to the census returns, contain nearly one half of all the 
foreign-born residents in the Union. The entire repeal of the naturalization 
laws would not materially diminish the number of that class of immigrants, 
who come here seeking employment for their labor, and accumulate in the cities. 
They come to make a living, not to acquire the right of suffrage — allured by 
no espectation of easy naturalization, but by the prospect of higher wages and 
more constant employment than they can find in the country which they leave. 
Of the foreign-born males over the age of twenty-one, in the city of Bost«n, 
the returns for 1845 and 1850, show that five-sixths were unnaturalized. It is 
fair to presume, that a similar proportion in the other cities have failed to avail 
themselves of the advantages of our present naturalization laws. 

The other ostensible object of the Know Nothing organization is entirely 
beyond the reach of the Federal Grovernment. It cannot touch Roman Catho- 
licism by any Constitutional action. The folly of attempting to arrest the pro- 
gress of a religious creed by persecutions and civil disabilities, has been so often 
demonstrated that it is surprising to see it revived in this age and country. A 
distini^uished advocate of religious liberty declared, nearly a half century ago, 
that even in Great Britain, nearly all its opponents had been silenced — some 
had been taught sense, others inspired with shame, until none were left upon 
the field, except those who could neither learn nor blush. The principles of 
religious liberty are cherished in Virginia with peculiar affection. Our act for 
the establishment of religious freedom, asserts in imposing and authoritative 
lano'uagc that " the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence, 
by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolu- 
ment, unless he profess, or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving 
him injuriously of those privileges and advantages to which in common with 
his fellow citizens he has a natural right; that it tends only to corrupt the 
principles of that religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing, with a mono- 
poly of worldly honors and emoluments, those who will externally profess and 
conform to it, that though, indeed, those are criminal who do not withstand 
such temptation, yet neither are those innocent who lay the bait in their way." 
In the struggle which terminated in the complete emancipation of religion in 
this State, the dissenting Protestant sects, under the energetic lead of the Bap- 
tists, bore a conspicuous part. The act for the establishment of Religious 
Freedom, was eminently a Protestant achievement, and Protestantism in Vir- 
ginia rudely despoils itself of the fairest ornament with which it is decorated 
by history, when it violates the letter or the spirit of that celebrated law. The 
men who now seek to renew the dogmas of religious intolerance, pay an appro- 
priate homage to the virtue and intelligence of this country, when they conceal 
themselves from public observation. Those who are afraid to meet the Roman 
Catholic arguments in the field of fair discussion, may well be alarmed at its 
anticipated progress ; but its more intelligent opponents v/ill regard with com- 
posure what they consider its errors, so long as reason is left free to combat 
them. For every Roman Catholic Priest in the United States, there are some 
25 Protestant preachers; for every Catholic altar, there are 30 Protestant pul- 
pits. Scarcely one-twentieth part of the population of the Union is attached 
to the Roman Catholic religion. If Protestantism is not safe with these heavy 
odds in its favor, its ascendancy will not be maintained by persecutions and ci- 
vil disabilities imposed upon its opponents. Know Nothingism may do more 



127 

to advance the Catholic cause than all its Priesthood, and place Catholicism on 
the right side and Protestantism on the wrong side of the great question of 
Religious Liberty, by a course so illiberal and unwarrantable. This is attemp- 
ted to be justified by an absurd exaggeration of the political influence of Catho- 
licism in this country. Mr. Chandler, of Pennsylvania, addressing the House 
of Representatives a few weclcs since, declared that he knew of but one Catho- 
lic besides himself, who was a member of that House of Congress. We may, 
then, at least pronounce the Legislative Department to be free from Catholic 
control. There seems to be no occasion to organize a new party to protect that 
branch of the Federal Government, and the Catholic influence is equally feeble 
in the Executive and Judicial departments. 

What then can Know Nothingism accomplish upon the subjects which it 
undertakes to agitate ? It may expel from the Executive department a few 
naturalized citizens who are incumbents of office, — but as nine-teuths of the 
Federal offices are said to be already filled by native citizens, that can scarcely 
be an object worth the attention of a national party. Those who originated 
and expect to control this organization, must have other and undivulged objects 
in view. Temporary prejudice and excitement on the subjects of Foreignism 
and Catholicism may serve to place them in power. How will they use power 
when so acquired? We may well recall the eloquent warning of a great Eng- 
lish statesman, and beware of *' so trying a thing as new power in new persons, 
of whose principles, tempers and dispositions we have little or no experience, 
and in situations \vhere those who appear most stirring on the scene may not be 
the real movers." What is this new party expected to do upon those great sub- 
jects of practical interest to which we have before referred ? The elections iu 
which they have already triumphed afford us suflicient data to infer their policy 
upon the most important of these subjects — SLAVERY. 

Know Nothingism has had its origin and growth in those quarters of the 
Union where Abolitionism is most powerful. At the very instant that Know 
Nothingism has swept over the non-slaveholding States, Abolitionism has ac- 
quired an ascendency to which it never before aspired. Every election in which 
Northern Know Nothingism has triumphed, has enured to the benefit of Aboli- 
tionism. Every individual whom the Northern Know Nothings have elected to 
either branch of the Federal Legislature, is committed to the most violent views 
of the Abolitionists. They have prostrated, wherever they had the power to do 
so, the same men whom the Abolitionists wished to prostrate. They have sus- 
tained every man whom the Abolitionists wished to save. Know Nothingism, 
in the ascendant throughout the non-slaveholding States, does not elevate into 
power a single friend to the South. No solitary exception breaks the gloomy 
uniformity of the scene. Everywhere they are doing the work which Aboli- 
tionism has, been unsuccessfully attempting for years. And yet we are required 
to believe that they were not organized to perform this part, but only to do those 
other things which, as we have endeavoured to show, no such party can effect. 

It must be apparent to every intelligent observer that the anti slavery senti- 
ment now domineers over the public mind in the non-slaveholding States. la 
all the recent elections in that quarter of the Union, the ordinary political issues 
have been made subordinate to the slavery subject. Is it not surprising that 
Southern men should, at such a moment, be expected to waive this issue, and 
elevate a nevr party into power, without even inquiring their purposes upon this 
subject ? Just at the time when the Northern States are uniting in an assault 
upon the vital interests of the South, ought we to abandon the vigilant care of 
our own afi"airs, in a gratuitous eS'ort to purge Northern society of a disease 
which may afllict them, but does not disturb us ? We appeal to Southern men, 
without distinction of party, to ponder the consequences before they co-operate 
with this organization. The secrecy with which its proceedings are conducted, 
afford ample ground for caution and suspicion. A party which conceals all its 



128 

operations and designs from the public, may conceal some of its ultimate pur- 
poses from that portion of its own votaries to whom a premature disclosure 
might be hazardous. The same principle of political ethics, which justifies de- 
ception upon those outside the order, might excuse partial concealment from 
those within. When you enter this order, you assent to the propriety of con- 
cealment as an agency in partisan contests. How can you complain when it is 
practiced upon yourselves by your own confederates ? Know Xothingism does 
not pretend to disclose to its Southern adherents its designs upon any of the 
questions concerned which Federal Legislation can really affect Southern inter- 
ests. Will you persist in arming this party with all the powers of the Federal 
Government, without enquiring and approving its purposes upon those questions, 
simply because you may happen to agree with its views upon two subjects of no 
practical importance to you, and concerning neither of which can any material 
action be had by the Federal Government ? The fact, that it discloses to you 
its views upon those subjects, while it carefully conceals them upon more vital 
topics, ought, of itself, to awaken your apprehensions. While it attempts to 
delude you with the fiction that Opposition to Foreignism and Catholicism is 
an issue which overrides all others, it is actively and rapidly filling the halls of 
Congress with men pledged to measures of fearful import to your interests. 

If the designs of Know Nothingism were even free from censure, it should 
still be repelled from your midst. In giving countenance to a secret political 
organization, you are introducing an instrument which may be applied to the 
most dangerous purposes. Before you bring the wooden horse within our gates, 
be sure that no armed enemy is concealed in the fatal structure. If any party 
in our midst ever assails the institution of slavery, its first approaches will be 
cloaked in a secrecy similar to that which now conceals Know Nothingism. The 
World's Convention of Abolitionists, at London, recommended the formation of 
anti-slavery societies in the Southern States. Popular sentiment opposes a for- 
midable and unsuperable barrier to the public execution of this plan. But 
when the operations of parties have become secret, how soon may we not expect 
such an organization as the World's Convention has advised? We respectfully 
and earnestly beg you to consider whether any good which this organization 
may be expected to effect can compensate for the least of the evils that may 
folio vv in its train. 

What have we to expect from the action of this party upon those other sub- 
jects which the Democratic party has been accustomed to regard as so important 
in the administration of the Federal Government 'i After the arduous contests 
•which we have maintained for so many years — just as the Democratic policy is 
fully established, and the country is gladdening under its influence — shall we 
blindly elevate into power a party which may revolutionize the whole system ? 
However carefully they may conceal their political views, it cannot be denied 
that this party is principally composed of the same materials which, combined 
under a different name, have been heretofore in opposition to the Democratic 
party. The same indiscriminate hostility to naturalized citizens that now dis- 
tingui.-hes Know-Nothingism, characterized the Federal party in the times of 
John Adams and of the Hartford Convention. The Democracy, under the lead 
of Jefferson and of Madison, have successfully encountered it heretofore, and 
are not afraid to meet it again. The annihilation of the Democratic party in 
the Union is a leading object of the Know Nothing organization. Flushed 
•with its Northern triumphs, it comes here upon Virginia soil to encounter a 
party that wears the insignia of its victories through half a century, and that 
has never known defeat. Whenever disaster has overwhelmed the Democracy of 
the Union, they have always looked to the Party in Virginia to retrieve the 
fortunes of the day. Once more we are called to perform that duty. If we 
arrest the progress of this new enemy, and lift the trailing banner of our party, 
we rally the Democracy of the confederacy for a successful struggle in the Pre- 



129 

sidential contest of 1S56. If we are defeated in Virginia, we disappoint the 
hopes of the best friends of the Constitution. We are looked to with hope or 
with fear by the whole confederacy. Let the Democracy of Virginia be equal 
to the enier<i;ency. 

JOHN RUTHERFOORD, Chairman. 



VARIOUS ARGUMENTS AND DOGMAS OF KNOW NOTHING ISM 

EXAMINED. 

We append here sundry articles from the Richmond Examiner touching sun- 
dry features of Know Nothingism. 

The Know Nothings' oaths grossly violate the Constitution. — The 
following schedule contrasts the nationaUti/ of which the Constitutions of Vir- 
ginia and of the Union is refulgent in every line and letter, with the explo^sive, 
combustible, revolutionary, fanatical and bigoted stuff, with which the Know 
Nothing ritual is saturated in every section and article. 

Know Kutliiny Cunslitut'um. Constitution of tlie United States. 

Art. III. "The object of this or- Art. VI. No religious test shall ever 
g;mization shall be to resist the insid- be required as a qualification for ani/ 
U0U3 policy of the Church of Rome, office of public trust under this govern- 
and other foreign influences against the ment. 
institutions of the country, hi/ placiixj 
in all offices in the gift of the people, 
or 1)1/ appointment, none hut native 
horn Protestant citizens." 



Knoio Nothing oath. 
" You furthermore promise and de- 
clare that you will not vote nor give 
your influence for any man for any of- 
fice in the gift of the people, unless 
he be an American born citizen, in 
favor of Americans ruling America, 

NOR IF HE BE A ROMAN CaTHOLIC." 



Again : " You solemnly and sin- 
cerely swear, that if it may be legally, 
you will, when elected to any office, 
remove all foreigners and Roman Ca- 
tholics FROM OFFICE ; and that you 

WILL IN NO CASE APPOINT SUCH TO 
OFFICE." 



Amendments to the Constitution of the 
United States. 
Art. I. Congress shall make no law 
respecting an establishment of religion, 
or theyVee exercise thereof; or abridg- 
ing the freedom, of speech orof thepress; 
or the right of the people peaceably to 
assemble, and to petition the govern- 
ment for a redress of grievances. 

Constitution of Virginia. 
Sec. XV. " No man shall be com- 
pelled to frequent or support any re- 
ligious worship, place or ministry 
whatever ; nor shall any man be en- 
forced or restrained, molested or bur- 
thened in his body or goods, or other- 
wise svffcr, on account of his religious 
opinion or belief; but all men shall be 
free to profess, and by argument to 
maintain, their opinions in matters of 
religion, and the same shall in no 

WISE AFFECT, DIMINISH OR ENLARGE 
THEIR CIVIL CAPACITIES." 



130 

There could not be a more palpable conflict than that which is here exhibited 
between the Covenant of nationality and Union, handed down to us by our fa- 
thers, and its clandestine assailant. The wonder is, that among an intelligent 
and patriotic people, so dark and ominous a conspiracy could have acquired the 
strength it has attained in the land ; but what HuDlBRAS said in the bitterness 
of his cynicism must be acknowledged to be true in the extent to which it ap- 
plies to the proselytes of this new monstrosity : — 

The world is naturally averse, 
To all the good it sees and hears ; 
But swallows nonsense and lies, 
With greediness and gluttony. 

l?hc Constitution of our country guarantees to every man in the land the 
right to profess and propagate his creed, provided only that he is a law-abiding 
citizen. This is as it should be. That great charter of our liberty never con- 
templated any religious test to constitute a man a suitable person to hold an of- 
fice under its purview. ' It is vain to say that you only exercise your rights as 
freemen to cast your votes for whom you please. In pledging yourselves to ex- 
clude all persons from political oifices who hold the Romish faith, you do virtu- 
ally re(|uire a religious test. You require at least that your candidate shall be 
a Protestant. The question is not, if two persons are equally qualified to fill 
an office, the one a Romanist, the other a Protestant, which of the two you 
shall choose : but your principles force you to choose a man wholly unfit to fill 
the place in opposition to a man qualified in every respect to fill it, save that he 
is a Rou^anist. You would proscribe a Taney, or a Gaston, for his faith, and 
in his place elect a man in no respect qualified to discharge the duties of the 
office. Now if this is not proscribing a man for his religious opinions, the wri- 
ter is at a loss to know what it is. Leave this whole matter where the Consti- 
tution of the country" leaves it. Judge each man by himself, and decide upon 
his own individual merits, but do not proscribe him for his faith. You cannot 
coerce a man to your opinion. He may adopt your shibboleth for the sake of 
aain, but you have only made a hypocrite instead of a proselyte. 
~~" The purity of religion no less than the welfare of the country would be pro- 
moted, by leaving the question of Romanism where our Constitution leaves it. 
Without the shadow of a doubt, pure religion would be advanced in the same 
way. An efi'ort to exclude all Romanists from participating in the administra- 
tion of our government, would only make them combine to accomplisli more 
effectually their object, whereas if left to the silent operation of other influences 
they would cast their votes as citizens, and not as persecuted religionists. There 
will always be found men who will bid for their suffrages. In a representative 
form of government the power of numbers must be felt, and if Romanists 
cannot elect a man who professes their faith, the^' will cast their suffrages for 
one who most nearly reflects their peculiar views, or will do their bidding. In 
this way a secret Romanist will be elected, instead of an open. Which of the 
two is preferable ? Is it not better to have an open than a secret foe ? The 
truth is, this whole agitation, instead of weakening, will strengthen this sect. 
It will elevate an unimportant political clement, by the power of combination, 
into one important, if not controlling. 

The test of rcb'ijiovs belie/ is arbitrary, unjust and oppressive. It is contra- 
ry to the Constitution, which expressly forbids that " any religious ted shall 
ever be required as a qualificatioiv. to any office of public trust under this go- 
vernment."' • Every Know Nothing who takes an oath bidding him to try can- 
didates by this test, takes an oath against the Constitution of the Union. We 
do not charge them with intentional culpability in this act, which we know they 
must commit in thoughtlessness and without due examination, but we warn them 



131 

against persisting in an oatli in direct antagonism to the Constitution of tLeIr 
counti-}'. 

There arc a great many honest men who see the dilemma in which their 
Know Nothingisni phices them as good citizens, and yet arc deterred from leav- 
ing the Order from conscicncious scruples iu regard to this oath taken in their 
initiation. An oath to violate one's conscience ought not to he oheyed. The 
passage from St. Mark, reciting the occurrence between Herod and the daughter 
of Horodias, illustrates the fatal consequences of a vicious vow. 

'' For Herod himself had sent forth and laid hold upon John, and bound him 
in prison for Herodias' sake, his brother Philip's wife; for he had married her. 

For John had said unto Ilerod : It is not lawful for thee to have thy bro- 
ther's wife. 

Therefore, Herodias had a quarrel against him, and would have killed him, but 
she could not. 

For Herod feared John, knowing that he was a just man and an holy, and 
observed him ; and when he heard him, he did many things, and heard him 
gladly. 

And when a convenient day was come, that Herod on his birth-day, made a 
supper to his lords, high captains, and chief estates of Galilee ; 

And when the daughter of the said Herodias came in, and danced, and 
pleased Herod and them that sat with him, the King said unto the damsel, ask 
of me whatsoever thou wilt, and I will give it thee. 

And he swore- unto her, whatever thou shalt ask of me, I will give it thee, 
even unto half of my kingdom. 

And she went forth, and said unto her mother, what shall I ask ? and she 
said the head of John the Baptist. 

And she came in straightway with haste unto the King, and asked, saying, 
I wish that thou give me, by and by, iu a charger, the head of John the Bap- 
tist. 

And the Ring was exceedingly sorry ; yet for his oath's saTce, and for their 
sakes which sat with him, he would not reject her," 



The Facts of the Cexsus. — We do not know anything in the course of 
the history of the country more humiliating than the reflection that in our larld, 
consecrated to equal rights, and boasting its popular intelligence, an unmanly 
crusade has been gotten up with the avowed purpose of disfranchising a frag- 
ment of our people, constituting only twelve and a half per cent, of the whole 
population, and of persecuting a sect of Christians numbering less than one in 
one hundred of the Church of Jesus Christ, out of that highest and most sacred 
of all the liberties for which our fathers fought and shed their blood — the lib- 
erty OF conscience. 

We desire to call the attention of the honest, honorable and magnanimous 
people of Virginia to the facts of this humiliating subject, as shown by the 
Census. 

1. The foreigners in Virginia number but two and a half in a hundred of 
her white population; and the foreigners in the United States but twelve and 
a half in a hundred of the free population of tlie Union. 

2. Except Ireland — which the noble old Whig, Henry Clay, once regretted 
that some great convulsion of nature had not transplated from the side of Eng- 
land to the side of generous Kentucky — and except p]ngland, no single State 
of Europe has given nativity to as many of the residents of Virginia as the 
Abolition State of Massachusetts. 



132 

.' 3. The af^gregate number of foreigners in the Southern slave States to the 
nggrcgate free -population, is less than two in a hundred; showing that the 
Know Nothing movement is of Northern origin, and an ism that the South 
stands in no need of — saying nothing of the pusillanimity of a popular crusade 
against a handful of strangers, when the odds are as one hundred against two ! 

4. The number of Catholic Churches in Virginia is but 17 in an aggregate 
of 2,386, and these 17 small and thinly attended, being capable of accommo- 
dating but 7,930 persons, while the Protestant Churches accommodate 850,156 ! 

5. 'rhis is a glaring fact, that there are 87,383 free natives in Virginia unable 
to read and write ; of whom 30,244 (or twice the whole number of male for- 
eigners now in Virginia — 15,600) are native white males. If the republican 
principle of equal rights should be violated in order to proscribe 15,606 foreign 
males, many of them educated and distinguished for learning, talents, and pat- 
riotism, it would follow that the principle should be violated also in respect to 
twice that number of native males unable to read and write. 

NATIVITIES. 



1. Virginia [whites.) 
Born in the State, 

Born out of the State, but in the United States, 
Born in foreign countries. 
Nativities unknown, 



2. Other States and Territories (^whites.) 
Born in the States and Territories, 
Born in foreign countries, 
Nativities unknown, 



1. Virginia. 
Born in the State, 

Born out of the State, but in the United States, 
Born in foreign countries, 
Natives unknown, 

2. Other States and Territories. 
Born in States and Territories, 

Born in foreign countries, 
Nativities unknown. 



Popidation. 


Ratio. 


813,811 

57,582 
22,953 


90.95 
6.44 
2.56 


454 


.05 


894,800 


100. 


17,279,829 

2,240,581 

32,958 


88.37 

11.46 

.17 


19,553,068 


100. 


Male. 


Female. 


404,331 

31,084 

15,606 

279 


409,480 

26,498 

7,347 

175 


8,765,347 

1,239,464 

21,591 


8,514,482 

1,001,117 

11,067 



The annexed tabic shows the proportion of native to foreign-born in different 
sections of the United States, (white and free colored.) The first column rep- 
resents the native, including unknown ; the second, foreign-born ; and third, 
proportion of foreign to native, per cent. : 



Eastern, 
Middle, 
Southern, 
South Western, 
N. West and Ter. 



2,421,867 
5,447,733 
,2,342,255 
1,973,531 
5,557,529 



306,249 

1,080,674 

43,530 

105,335 

708,860 



17,742,915 2,244,648 



12.65 
19.84 

1.86 

5.34 

12.75 

12.65 



133 

NUMBER OF CHURCHES IN VIROINIA. 

Baptist, GoO ; Christian, IG ; Episcopal, 173 ; Free, 10« ; Friends, 15 ; Germ. 
Ref., 9; Jewish, 1; Lutheran, 50; Mennonite, G; Methodist, 1025; Mora- 
vian, 8; Presbyterian, 241; Roman Catholic, \1 ) Swedenborgen, 1 ; Tunker, 
8 ; Universalist, 1 ; minor sects, 5. Total, 2,386. , . , , 

The total value of Church Property in Virginia is $2,8G0,87G ; of which the 
Methodists possess $825,000; Baptists, $688,818; Episcopal, $529,4^0; 
Presbyterian, $571,1G5; and lloman Catholics, 8126,100. _ noiQo v 

The total number of Churches in the States and Territories is o8,18o, ot 
which 13,338 are Methodist; 9,360 Baptist; 4,863 Presbyterian; 1,461 Epis- 
copalian; and 1,227 Roman Catholic. 

The total " Church Accommodations" in Virginia is 858,086 ; of which 
823,708 is Methodist; 257,589 Baptist; Presbyterian, 104,125; Episcopal, 
80,684; and Roman Catholic, 7,930. 

The number of pupils in the State, attending school, was in 18o0, 109,7^5, 
of whom 211 were foreign born— ninety-two hundredths of one per cent, of the 
gross foreign population. 

The number of persons— white and free colored— over twenty-ofte years ot 
age, who were unable to read and write, was as follows: Native, 87,383 ; For- 
eign. 1,138; native white males, 30,244; native white females, 46,761. Total, 
88,520. , . , 

The per cent, of native white and free colored illiterate to total native and 
free colored population in Virginia is 9.44; the per cent, of foreign do. to for- 
eign do. do. is only half that, or 4.95 ! 



'' Foreigners Rule America."— We find the following table going the 
rounds of the Whig and Know Nothing papers of Virginia : 

Number of foreigners and Americans now holding ofiice under the United 
States Government at Washington : 

Washhuiton, D. C. Amer. For. 

State Department, 12 ^-w 

Treasury Department, 139 



Department of the Interior, 
Officers and agents in service of House of Rep- 
resentatives, 
Post Office Department, 



38 500 

10 40 

11 80 

510 014 

151 106 

15 30 



Ministers and Consuls, 

Coast Survey, 

United States Mint, 25 ^12 

Light house Board Inspectors and Keepers, 31 392 

U. States Revenue and Marine Service, 35 ^^ 

767 1484 

The lists of Custom House officers in the different States show— Americans, 
215 ; Foreigners, 1837. 

It is printed conspicuously at the head of their leading editorial columns, and 
must be regarded, therefore, as the 'platform of principles of the Fusionists in 
the present canvass. It discloses the leading passion that actuates the Outs, 
showing that their eyes are intently set upon office, and that their minds are 



J34 

very earnestly exercised with the statistics of office. We doubt not the mass 
of ihera believe the truth of the statement, and that some wag of the Order, 
seeing the vast numbers in their ranks who aut upon the principles of the loaves 
and fishes, has played a trump card in concocting this statement, and in mul- 
tiplying the real number of Jt'oreigners holding oifice in tbe land by ten, fifty, 
or a huiidred, in order to whet the appetite of the outs, and prove to their ans' 
ious office seekiug minds, that there will be vacancies for all and some to spare. 
Just for the sake of truth, wo shall pick this Munchausen bladder of the 
Fusionists with a bodkin from the Washington Union, in the shape of the fol- 
lowing official document. 

POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT. 

We begin with the appointment in the Post Office Department : 

Clerks, 84 

Assistant Postmasters General, 3 

Messenger, 1 

Assistant Messengers, 2 

Watchmen, 3 

Laborers, 7 

Whole number, 100 

Of these, 88 are of American birth, and 12 of foreign birth. 
The following are the particulars to be observed : 

1. John Marron, Third Assistant Postmaster General, appointed May 17th, 
IS-JO ; was born in Ireland, came here when eight months old. 

2. John Agg, clerk, appointed June 8th, 1851 ; born in Eugland, resided 
here for more than forty years. 

3. N. Holten, clerk, appointed June 3, 1834; born in Switzerland, resided 
here 27 years. 

4. J. Lawrenson, clerk, appointed April 7, 1834; born in England, came 
here 3 months old, now fifty years in this country. 

5. G. A. Schwarzman, clerk, appointed June, 1848 ; born in Germany, came 
to this country IG years of age, served 10 years in the American army. 

6. E. Douelly, clerk, appointed July 1, 1853 ; born in Ireland, came to this 
country when 8 years of age, now 32 years in the country. 

7. J. R. Condon, clerk, appointed July 1, 1853; born in Ireland, came here 
about 21 years of age, now 40 years old. 

8. J. E. McMahon, clerk, appointed May 2, 1853; born in Ireland, came 
here an infant, now 22 years of age. 

0. James McCorrick, clerk, appointed July 2, 1853 ; born in Ireland, came 
here young, now 45 years old. 

10. C. McDonnel, messenger, appointed August 10, 1853 ; born in Ireland, 
resident in the country 35 years. 

11. T. Molchon, watchman, appointed May 22, 1853; born in Ireland, resi- 
dent in this country many years. 

12. James Orr, clerk, appointed August, 1854; born in Ireland, resided here 
14 years, served two and a half years in the Mexican war, and was badly 
wounded. 

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR. 

The Interior Department shows the following result 

Interior Department proper, 

Land Office, . . - 



nerican. 


Foreign 


16 


4 


112 


12 



55 


4 


17 


o 


52 


5 


21 


G 


13 


2 



135 

Patent Office, - 

Indian Bureau, - - " 

Pension Office, - - " 

Commissioners of Public P>uilcliugs, and watchmen, keepers 

of bridges, &c., under bis control. 
Penitentiary, . - - 

Total, 286 35 

THE DErARTMENT OF STATE. 

The following is from the Department of State. It will be observed that the 
j)roportion of foreigners holding office under this department is somewhat greater 
than usual ; and the reason obvious : a number of the consulates do not pay a 
livinf compensation. American citizens cannot and will not accept ot such ap- 
poiurmcnts, and they are given to foreigners simply because no body else will 
take them : 

Department of State, August 28, 1854. 

The following is a statement respecting all persons now employed either in or 
under the supervision of the Department of State : 

I. — Emploi/ed Abroad. 

1. Ministers, commissioners, secretaries of legation, and agents connected with 
tbem — whole number, 42. 

Of these, 4 were born abroad, C of whom have been naturalized, and 1, the 
United States despatch agent in London, has not. 

2. Consuls and commercial agents — whole number, 220. 

Of these, 49 were born abroad, of whom 21 have been naturalized, and 1 has 
. not; and 1 was born under the flag of the United States; the rest, or 26, may 
have been naturalized, but of this the department has no evidence. 

ll.—Emphijcd in the United States, or their Territories, as Governors, or 
Seeretaries of Territories and dispatch agents — whole mmlcr, 16. 
Of whom 13 were born in the United States. The rest, 2 of whom are dis- 
patch agents, were probably so born ; but of this the department has no direct 
evidence. 

III. — Emploi/ed in this department — whole numler, 40. 
Of these, G were born abroad; one of whom came to the United States in his 
third year, and is of American parents, who at the time of his birth, were tem- 
porarily residing abroad; 4 of the others so born have been naturalized, and 1 
soon will be : 

6V(:rZ:s.— William Hunter, Rhode Island ; A. French, New York ; Frs. 
Markoe, St. Croix, of American parents; A. H. Derrick, Pennsylvania; James 
S. Mackie, Ohio; J. P. Polk, Delaware ; R. S. Chilton, New Jersey; II. D. J. 




L. F. Tesistro, Ireland; Edward Stubbs, Ireland; H. D. Johnson, Massachu- 
setts ; R. S. Gillett, New York ; C Gr. Baylor, Kentucky. 

Messenger. — Calvin Ames, Massachusetts. 

l\tcker.—\Nm. P. Faherty, Maryland. 

^Yatchmen. — Wra. II. Prentiss, District of Columbia; James Donaldson, 
District of Columbia; R. Harrison, England; A. Best, Germany. 



136 

Lahorers. — James S. Martin, Maryland ; William Lueus, District of Colum- 
bia; E. W. Hansell, Pennsylvania; W. A. Scott, Pennsylvania; Thomas 
Thomas, Virginia ; James Williamson, Virginia; Charles H. Brown, Maryland ; 
John JlcQuii-e, Ireland. 

Recap it ulat io n . 
21 clerks — 18 native born; 1 born of American parents, transiently abroad ; 
2 foreign born. 1 messenger — native born. 1 packer — native born. 
2 watchmen — native born ; 2 watchmen — foreign born. 
7 laborers — native born; 1 laborer — foreign born. 
35 in all — 30 of whom are native citizens ; 5 of whom are foreijrn. 

TREASURY DEPARTMENT. 

In the office of the secretary of the Treasury and bureaus, including the of- 
fices of the assistant treasurers and mints, there are 430 Americans, 26 foreign- 
ers, and 3 not known. 

Revenue cutter service — Americans, 65. 

Light-house keepers — Americans, 238 ; foreigners 32 ; not known, 132. 
Customs — Americans, 1,845; foreigners, 227: not known, 20. 
Total number of persons employed under the State Treasury, Post Office and 
Interior Departments, is as follows : 

Americans, 3,346 

Foreigners, 430 

Not known, 330 



Whole number of employed, 4,106 

In the House of Representatives on the first of October, 1853, there were 
fifty-four persons employed — all of whom, except one, were Americans. 

The statement of the Fusionists is, therefore, shown to be the reverse of truth 
in every particular item covered by this document from the Union ; and the in- 
ference is, of course, irresistible, that it is so in all its items : — Fahum in nno 
fahinn in omnibus. It asserts the foreigners employed in the several depart- 
ments to be two to one over natives ; while the fact is there are seven to one 
natives over foreigners. It claims that there are nine to one foreigners over na- 
tives in the Custom Houses ; while the fact is, that there are nine to one natives 
over foreigners. 

For the sake of contrast, we give below the Munchausen statement on the 
left hand and the official statement on the right. It is amusing. 

Look here, upon this picture, and on this : 





Munchausen Sta 


tement. 


Official statement. 




Native. 


For. 


Native. For. 


State Department, 
Treasury Department, 
Dep. of Interior, 


12 
139 
838 


26 
278 
500 


30 5 
430 26 

286 35 


House of Representatives, 
Post Office Department, 


10 
11 


40 
80 


53 1 
88 12 



Total Munchausen, 510 914 Total true, 887 79 



Ministers and Consuls, 
Light-house keepers, 
Custom House officer.«?, 



151 


106 


31 


392 


216 


1837 



208 


54 


238 


32 


845 


227 



137 ^ 

The Absurdity of Fearino the Catholics.— It is the characteristic of all >^ 
one-ideaistiis, that they are sure to make fanatics of their advocates; whatever ^ 
degree of intelligciice* and elevation of mind and feeling they always before 
have possessed. We are sure that if tliere was a broad and substantial founda- 
tion of merit and patriotism in the Know Nothing movement, its intelligent 
members would scorn to appeal to religious bigotry and prejudice for tbat pop- 
ular sympathy which the cause would command without sue-h unworthy recourse. 
Out of about one million, and a half of human beings in Virginia, there is but 
the little handful of 7,030— o«fi luilf of one. per cent, of the wVio/fi— who pro- 
fess and worship according to the Catholic faith. What must be said of a party 
which dares not trust its cause to reason and argument in such a State as Virgi- 
nia ; but, to carry its point, is obliged to appeal to the religious feelings, preju- 
dices and jealousy oi fourteen hundred thonsand Protestants against en/ht thou- 
sand Catholics, under the cowardly, mean, malignant and false pretence that 
such a majority is in danger of subjugation from such a handful of proscribed 
people/if there be rcal'and imminent danger of the sort, where have been 
the sentinels that are just raising this sudden alarm, for the last ten, or twenty, 
or tifty years gone by ? It has only been within a twelve month that the new 
paity'have monopolized to itself all the Protestantism and genuine Americanism 
of the country, and raised, sudden as a fire-bell at night, the alarm against the 
^olf__t[jo Pope— the poor Italian Prince Pio Nino. Either the learlors have 
been long very neglectful of duty and lukewarm in patriotism, or they talk 
gammon, to gull the ignorant million and alarm the amiable but weak and easily 
terrified spinsters of the country, when they cry out against the temporal power 
of the Pope. 

Wm. Pitt, while Prime Minister of England, contemplating an act of justice 
to the Catholics, solemnly proposed a set of interrogatories to several of the 
most celebrated Catholic "Theological Universities in Europe. The following 
questions were proposed : First. Has the Pope, or have the Cardinals, or any 
body of men, or has any individual of the Church of Ptome, anj/ civil avthorit^, 
power, jurisdiction or pre-eminence whatever within the realm of P^ngland. 
Second. Can the Pope, or Cardinals, or any body of men, or any individual of 
the Church of Rome, absolve or dispense his Majesty's subjects from their oath 
of allegiance, upon any pretence whatever ? Third. Is there any priuciple in 
the tenets of the Catholic faith, by which Catholics are justified in not keeping 
faith with Heretics, or other persons ditfering from them in religious opinions, 
in an// fransactlon.'i, either of a public or private nature ? To these questions 
the Universities of Paris, Louvain, Alcala, Salamanca and Valadolid, after ex- 
pressing their astonishment that it could be thought necessary at the close of 
the ISth century, and in a country so enlightened as England, to propose such 
enquiries, severally and unanimously answered : 1st. That the Pope, or Cardi- 
nals, or any body of men, or any individual of the Church of Rome, has not 
and have not any civil authority, power, jurisdiction or pre-eminence whatever, 
within the realm of England. 2dly. That the Pope, or Cardinals, or any body 
of men, or any individiaal of the Church of Rome, cannot absolve or dispense 
bis Majesty's subjects from their oath of allegiance upon any pretext whatso- 
ever. And, Bdly. That there is no principle in the tenets of the Catholic Faith, 
by which Catholics are justified in not keeping faith with Heretics, or other 
persons diff"ering from them in religious opinions, in transactions either of a 
public or a private nature. The Pope himself was written to upon the same 
question, and most solemnly announced that his See asserted no such claim. 
Surely this is better testimony than the self-contradictory declaration of a Dub- 
lin Catholic editor. 

We do not rely, however, in a matter of this sort, upon documentary evi- 
dence, or newspaper asseveration. We take the ground that the people are 
themselves sufficient to assert and maintain their independence of Popes of all 



138 

sorts ; and tbat thoj- arc in no danger of being deposed from the sovereignty 
with which their Maker and their Fathers endowed them in these States. 
Three thousand and fifty Protestant clergy will in vain \favl their anathemas 
against them from Yankee pulpits, and one Dublin editor may impotently pro- 
claim the Pope's authority over their temporal concerns, but while they have 
the right to manage their own affairs, spite of Popes and of secret clubs, they 
will always be ready and able to maintain and support that sovereignty. It is 
only an insult to the intelligence, the manliness and the Christian sentiment of 
the Virginia people to maintain the possibility of a priestcraft domination over 
them from any quarter or of any sort. 

But what are the historical evidences of the truth of this charge, that Catho- 
lics arc less attached to civil governments entitled to their allegiance, than other 
deuominatinns ? Surely the Catholic subjects of the British crown have had 
cause of ofllMiee against that government in its persecutions of Catholic Ireland. 
Surely the only Catholic province of that government, on this continent, might 
have been excused, while these persecutions of their Catholic brethren, in Ire- 
land, w^re going on, for seeking annexation to the United States. Surely the 
French Catholics of Canada have had incentives of animosity sufficient to shake 
their allegiance to the British Government in its numberless and bitter wars 
against Catholic Franca. Yet what is the present political status of Catholic, 
French, colonial Canada ? Hear how Lord Nugent refutes this idea of a half 
allegiance on the part of Catholics : 

" Your other colonies revolted ; they called on a Catholic power to support 
them, and they achieved their independence. Catholic Canada, with what Lord 
Liverpool would call her half-alliance, alone stood by you. She fonght by your 
side against the interference of Catholic France. To reward and encourage her 
loyalty, you endowed in Canada bishops to say mass, and to ordain others to 
say mass, whom, at that very time, your laws would have hanged for saying 
mass in England ; and Canada is still yours in spite of Catholic France, in 
spite of her spiritual obedience to the Pope, in spite of Lord Liverpool's argu- 
ments, and in spite of the independence of all the States that surround her. 
This is the only trial you have made. Where you allow to the Eoman Catho- 
lics their religion undisturbed, it has proved itself to be compatible with the 
most faithful allegiance. It is only where you have placed allegiance and reli- 
gion before them as a dilemma, that they have preferred (as who will say that 
they ought not?) their religion to their allegiance. How, then, stands tiie im- 
putation ? Disproved by history, disproved in all States, where both religions 
co-exist, and in both hemispheres, and asserted in an exposition by Lord Li- 
verpool, solemnly and repeatedly abjured by all Catholics, of the discipline of 
their church." — Lord Niujcnt's Letter to Rev. 'Sir Gcoryc Ijcc, Bart. 

Men might idly dispute till doomsday over the nice question in political ca- 
suistry of the extent of the Papal claim of temporal power outside of Home. 
But here are facts which illustrate how devoted Catholics may be and are ia 
the habit of showing themselves in the practical matter of allegiance. Yet it 
is due to candor to admit that there are historical instances in which Catholics 
have refused to obey the calls of the British government. The Irish Catholic 
Parliament refused to furnish taxes to support the war against the American 
colonies in their struggle for freedom. Then, too, there is this notable passage 
in BoTTA, pp. 236-'7 : 

"General Carleton, finding the Canadians so decided in their opposition, had 
recourse to the authority of religion. He therefore solicited Brand, the I^ishop 
of Quebec, to publish a mandament, to be read from the pulpit, by the curates, 
in time of divine service. He desired the prelate should exhort the people to 



139 

take arms, nncl second the solcriors of tlic Icing, in their enterprises agfiinst the 
colonies. But the bishop hi/ a mcmomhle example of piefi/ and rdujious mod- 
eration, refused to hud hisminisfn/ in this work; saying that such conduct 
would be "too unworthy the character of the pastor, and too contrary to the ca- 
nons of the Roman church. However, as in all professions, there are individ- 
uals who prefer their interest to their duty, and the useful to the honest, a few 
ecclesiastics employed themselves with great zeal in this affair ; but all their 
efforts were in vain : the Canadians (Catholics) persisted in their principles of 
neutrality. The nobility, so well treated in the act of Quebec, felt obligated 
in gratitude to promote in this occurrence the views of the government, and 
very strenuously exerted themselves with that intention, but without any better 
success." 

It is a well known fact that when Lord HowE, the first British commander 
of the forces designated at the breaking out of the American war for the inva- 
sion of this country, was ordered by the war department to prepare for embar- 
kation, he wrote that he could not trust the Irish Catholic soldiers of his army, 
as all their sympathies were with America; and the British government was 
forced to buy Protestant Hessians at the rate of sixpence a head from the 
Prince of Hesse Cassel. And the emissaries dispatched to Germany wrote 
more thau once to Lord North complaining bitterly of the German Catholics 
interfering with the enlistment of soldiers for America. 

There are facts, however, still later, and, if possible, still stronger than 
these. 

Catholic Louisiana fought full as bravely and effectually as Know Nothing 
Massachusetts against Catholic Mexico in the war of 184G-'47. Louisiana fur- 
nished seven regiments and 7,041 troops to fight against her brethren of the 
Catholic faith in that war of races and religions ; altho' Know Nothing Massa- 
chusetts, in the excess of her zeal against the Pope and his people, furnished 
but one regiment of 930 men to smi'te the Mexican priests; and furnished that 
number only by dint of most strenuous exertions on the part of the patriotic 
Democrats in her borders. If you ask which three States furnished the largest 
number of troops in that foreign war against a Catholic nation and a Catholic 
race, the archives of the country will tefl you that they were the Catholic States 
of Louisiana, Mi.ssouri and Texas. These furnished respectively 7,041, 6,441 
and G,D55 men, or an aggregate equal to the total number supplied by all the 
other States in the Union ! Besides, it is notorious that the regular army of 
the United States was made up during that war so exclusively of Irish, (Catho- 
lies) that it was difficult to find natives enough for the non-couami>sioncd offi- 
cers. 

Surely the generous people of Virginia will consider the evidence of the 
muster rolls of the country a better tablet of Catholic patriotism, under all 
temptations of religious prejudice and bigotry, than the newspaper columns of 
oath-bound editors. Let those who, for political purposes, are seeking to excite 
the hatred of the magnanimous Virginia voters against that patriotic people, 
read these facts of history, and blush for their lack of generosity. 



The following articles from the Enquirer discussed other branches of the 
subject in a most able and conclusive manner. 

KNOW-NOTHINGISM AND CATHOLICISM. 

Without any very penetrating research or profound philosophy, a person rnay 
discover that Know-Nothingism rests upon the vicious principles and practices 



140 

the very abominations with which the Catholic Church is reproached by its en- 
emies. 

It is true both in a logical and historical sense, that Protestantism was a re- 
volt against the moral despotism of the Catholic hierarchy. The church of 
Rome, at first simple in its ritual, pure in its faith, and spiritual in its aspira- 
tions, in time decorated itself with barbaric pomp of ceremonial, and got cor- 
rupted by the worldly passion of political ambition. The ignorance, the debase- 
ment and the disorders of the Middle Age, favored the pretensions of the 
Church ; as men sought refuge under its wing from the rage of anarchy and the 
oppression of violence. We speak as a Protestant when we affirm, that the do- 
minion nf the Church of Rome in the dark ages, if not in itself legitimate and 
compatilile with the spirit of cliristianity, was a political contrivance of im- 
mense frdvantage to mankind and to the cause of civilization. We make this 
assertion on the authority of the accurate and dispassionate Ranke, and we are 
supported in the position by the facts of history. The spiritual sway of Papa- 
cy mitigated the ferocity of feudal tyranny, and put a bridle on the savage pas- 
sions of uncultivated man. There was no justice but within the precincts of 
the sanctuary, no religion out of the confessional, no learning beyond the shades 
of the cloister. The hopes of humanity were preserved from a deluge more de- 
destructive than that which swept away the traces of antediluvian existence, and 
the church was the ark in which the seeds of civilization were saved from the 
raging elements of universal violence and darkness. 

For this great service Humanity must thank the Media3val Church. But the 
Church issued from the conflict with pride inflated, ambition stimulated, and 
with an immense a cession of political power. Men recognized their obligation 
to the Church, and from a feeling of gratitude, as well as superstitious dread of 
its power, contributed still farther to its aggrandizement. The unclean spirit 
took possession of the Church, debased its holy nature, and perverted its high 
purpnse. It became corrupt, in proportion as it became rich, and persecuting as 
it got to be powerful. It arrogated absolute sovereignty over the mind and con- 
science of men, and established the dread machinery of the inquisition to en- 
force conformity to its creed and obedience to its will. But the conscience and 
the reason of men revolted against the despotism of the Church, and Martin 
Luther raised a cry for the LIBERTY OF private judgment. He asserted the 
independence of the reason ?ind conscience of the individual man, against the 
dictation of councils and the authority of the Pope. And he conquered. The 
living principles of Protestantism, are, perfect freedom of conscience, and the 
sovereignty of the individual reason. But the Catholic Church too was cleansed 
of many of its impurities by the spirit of the Reformation, and its pride and 
its power have melt.ed before the progressive civilization of the age. 

In every aspect. Know Nothingism is a preposterous movement. Affecting an 
apprehension of hierarchical domination, it assails a church which propitiates 
pity by its very weakness and helplessness. Declaiming against an alliance of 
Churcli and State, it drags religion into the arena of politics, and promotes the 
interests of party by inflammatory appeals to the pious prejudices of Protestants. 
Denouncing the "insidious policy" and spiritual despotism of the Papacy, it 
practices expedients of craft and imposture from which a Jesuit would revolt, 
and enforces a submissive obedience to its will with the cruel intolerance of an 
Inquisitor. 
y^ Protestantism is, in its origin and essential idea, a revolt against any external 
domination over the reason and conscience of the individual man. Yet, Know 
Nothingism pretends to serve the interests of Protestantism, by an organization 
which usurps absolute sway over the mind, and exacts the most rigid conformity 
to the supreme will of the Order ! No stronger contrast can exist, than between 
the liberal spirit of genuine Christianity, which elevates and ennobles the indi- 
vidual with a sense of infinite responsibility and a consciousness of absolute con- 



141 

trol over his destiny, find the stern despotism of an organization, which strips V 
its votaries of their manhood, denies to them the prerogative of free thoiiglit } 
and free speech, and binds them to a passive obedience to the mandates of a su- y 
perior power. / -^ 

We do nofraisconceive the nature of Know Nothingism. Its essential idea is 
the subjection of the individual to the will of the Order. Before initiation ho 
binds himself by oath, in all thini/s, ivtUikal, and social, io compl// n-ith the will 
of the Order. After initiation, he is the abject slave of the Order, and cannot 
escape from his bondage without the consent of the Order. This is the letter 
of its constitution : the Grand Council shall have power to decide 7t2)on all 
matters appertaining to National Politics. Thus the individual member 
barters away his independent judgment, and in all matters appertaining to na- 
tional politics binds himself to submit to the dictation of the Grand Council. 
If the Grand Council say the Nebraska bill is an iniquity, he can no more dis- 
sent from their decision, than a good Catholic can now dispute the immaculate 
conception of the Virgin. The Catholic takes his religious faith from Popes 
and Councils; the Know Nothing receives his political creed from a Council too 
— not a council of men distinguished for piety and learning, but an irresponsi- 
ble conclave of demagogues, without personal character or public reputation. 

Th'js is Know Nothingism obnoxious to the verj' charge of which it accuses 
Catholicism. Its indictment against the Papacy recites its own crimes against 
humanity. The Church of Home was never more intolerant, the Council of the 
Inquisition never more proseriptive, than this perfidious friend of Protestantism, 
this treacherous champioa of religious liberty. 



THE ASSERTED TEMPORAL POWER OF THE POPE. * 

The Know Nothings of Virginia have placed themselves in the most ridicu- 
lous and discreditable position — they have shown themselves to be the most ar- 
rant cowards, frightened at the merest shadow. There are only 7,000 Catholics 
in Virginia, and about 800,000 Protestants — and yet the Know Nothings arc 
alarmed lest the 7,000 should swallow up the 800,000. Truly, as Major James 
Garland remarked, it would reverse the narrative of the Bible, for it would be 
nothing less than Jonah swallowing the whale! It is difficult to treat this sub- 
ject in any other light than that of levity and ridicule. liut since the alarming 
Catholic influence, and the overwhelming temporal power of the Pope of Rome, 
have been made prominent issues in the present contest, we deem it our duty to 
refute the absurd and groundless idea by a few facts from the records of past 
and present History. Wo shall first quote at length a declaration of the Eng- 
lish Catholics in 1789, utterly refuting the Know Nothing theory on the subject 
of the temporal power and influence of the Pope. When we see Catholics, 
under the monarchical institutions of England, proclaiming that thoy are en- 
tirely free from temporal allegiance to the Pope, is it not absurd to witness the 
hypocritical alarm ej pressed on this point by Know Nothings in our own country, 
where religion is free and where Truth is left to combat Error? The following' 
we extract from Rees' Encyclopedia, under the head of " Papists :" 

The Declaration and Protestation Sigiled hij the English Catholics in 1789. 

"We, whose names are hereunto subscribed, Catholics of England, do freely, 
voluntarily, and of our own accord, make the following solemn Declaration and 
Protestation. 

Whereas sentiments unfavourable to ws, as citizens and subjects, have been 
entertaioed by English Protestants, on account of principles which are asserted 



142 

to bo maintained by us and other Catholics, and which principles are dangerous 
to society, and totally repugnant to political and civil liberty ; — it is a duty that 
IOC, the English Catholics, owe to our country as well as to ourselves, to protest, 
in a formal and solemn manner, against doctrines that ice condemn, and that 
constitute no part whatever of our principles, religion, or belief. 

We are the more anxious to free ourselves from such imputations, because 
divers Protestants, who profess themselves to be real friends to liberty of con- 
science, have, nevertheless, avowed themselves hostile to us, on account of cer- 
tain opinions which ^ofi are supposed to hold. And we do not blame those Pro- 
testants for their hostility, if it proceeds (as we hope it does) not from an intol- 
erant spirit in matters of religion, but from their being misinformed as to mat- 
ters of fact. 

If it were true, that we, the English Catholics, had adopted the maxims that 
are erroneously imputed to us, we acknowledge that tve should merit the re- 
proach of being dangerous enemies to the State ; but, we detest those unchris- 
tian-like and execrable maxims: and ice severally claim, in common with men 
of all other religions, as a matter of natural justice, that we, the English Cath- 
olics, ou'rht not to suffer for or on account of any wicked or erroneous doctrines 
that may be held by any other Catholics, which doctrines ive publicly disclaim, 
any more than British Protestants ought to be rendered responsible fur any dan- 
gerous doctrines that may be held by any other Protestants, which doctrines 
they, the British Protestants, disavo.v. 

First, We have been accused of holding, as a principle of our religion, that 
princes, excommunicated by the Pope and council, or by authority of the See of 
Rome, may be deposed or murdered by their subjects, or other persons. 

But, so far is the move mentioned unchristian-like and abominable position, 
from being a principle that we hold, that we reject, abhor, and detest it, and 
very part thereof, as execrable and impious : and we do solemnly declare, that 
neither the Pope, either with or without a general council, nor any prelate, nor 
any assembly of prelates or priests, nor any ecclesiastical power whatever, can 
absolve the subjects of this realm, or any of them, from their allegiance to his 
majesty King George the Third, who is, by authority of parliament, the lawful 
king of this realm, and all of the dominions thereunto belonging. 

Second, We have also been accused of holding, as a principle of our religion, 
that implicit obedience is due from us to the orders and decrees of Popes and 
general councils ; and that therefore if the Pope, or any general council, should, 
for the good of the church, command us to take up arms against government, or 
by any means to subvert the laws and liberties of this country, or to extermi- 
nate persons of a different persuasion from us, u-e (it is asserted by our accu- 
sers) hold ourselves bound to obey such orders or decrees, on pain of eternal 
fire : 

■ "Whereas, we positively deny that vje owe any any such obedience to the Pope 
and general council, or to either of them ; and loe believe that no act that is 
in itself immoral or dishonest can ever be justified by or under color that it is 
done either for the good of the church, or in obedience to any ecclesiastical 
power whatever. We acknowledge no infallibility in the Pope ; and ?re neither 
apprehend nor believe that our disobedience to any such orders or decrees 
[should any such be given or made] could subject us to any punishment what- 
erer. And loe hold and insist, that the Catholic church hay no power that can, 
directly or indirectly, prejudice the rights of Protestants, inasmuch as it is 
strictly confined to the refusing to them a participation in her sacraments and 
other religious privileges of her communion, which no church (as we conceive) 
can be expected to give to those out of her pale, and which no person out of 
her pale, will, we suppose, ever require. 

And 7ve do solemnly declare, that no church, nor any prelate, nor any priest, 
nor any assembly of prelates or priests, nor any ecclesiastical power whatever, 



143 

hath, have, or ought to have, any jurisdiction or authority whatsoever within 
this realm, than can, directly or indirectly,' affect or interfere with the indepen- 
dence, sovereignty, laws, constitution, or government thereof; or the rights, 
liberties, persons, or properties of the people of the said realm, or any of them, 
save only and except by the authority of parliament; and that any .such as- 
sumption of pow#r would be an usurpation. 

Third, We have likewise been accused of holding, as a principle of our re- 
ligion, that the Pope, by virtue of his spiritual power, can dispense with the 
obliirations of any compact or oath taken or catered into by a Catholic ; that 
therefore no oath of allegiance, or other oath, can bind ?<.s ; and consequently, 
that Ke can give no security for our allegiance to any government. 

There can be no doubt but that this conclusion would be just, if the original 
proposition upon which it is founded were true ; but loc positively deny that we 
do hold any such principle. And wc do solemnly declare, that neither the pope, 
nor any prelate, nor any priest, nor any assembly of prelates or priests, nor 
any ecclesiastical power whatever, can absolve us, or any of us, from, or dis- 
pense with, the obligations of any compact or oath whatsoever. 

**Four(h, We have also been accused of holding, as a principle of our religion, 
that not only the pope, but even a Catholic priest, has the power to pardon the 
sins of Catholics at his will and pleasure, and, therefore, that no Catholic can 
possibly give any security for his allegiance to any government, inasmuch as the 
pope, or a priest, can pardon perjury, rebellion, and high treason. 

We acknowledge, also, the justness of this conclusion, if the proposition 
upon which it is founded were not totally flilse. But, ive do solemnly declare, 
that, on the contrary, ice believe that no sin whatever can be forgiven at the 
will of any pope, or of any priest, or of any person whomsoever; but that a 
sincere sorrow for past sin, a firm resolution to avoid future guilt, and every 
possible atonement to God and the injured neighbor, are the previous and indis- 
pensable requisites to establish a well-founded expectation of forgiveness. 

Fifth, And we have also been accused of holding, as a principle of our reli- 
gion, that no faith is to be kept with heretics; so that no government which 
is not Catholic can have any security from us for our allegiance and peaceable 
behaviour. 

This doctrine, that ' faith is not to be kept with heretics,' we reject, repro- 
bate and abhor, as being contrary to religion, morality, and common honesty ; 
and ice do hold and solemnly declare, that no breach of faith with any person 
whomsoever can ever be justified by reason of- or under pretence th;'vt such per- 
son is an heretic or an infidel. 

And ire further solemnly declare, that u-e do make this Declaration and Pro- 
testation, and every part thereof, in the plain and ordinary sense of the words 
of the same, without any evasion, equivocation, or mental reservation whatso- 
ever. 

And we appeal to the justice and candor of our fellow-citizens, whether we, 
the English Catholics, who thus solemnly disclaim, and from our hearts abhor, 
the above mentioned abominable and unchristian-like principles, ought to be 
put on a level with any other men who may hold and profess those principles. 

The above Declaration and Protestation was signed by one thousand seven 
hundred and forty persons, including several peers, and two hundred and forty- 
one clergymen of the Catholic religion. 

We come now to a later day, and wo produce proof the most urfdoubted, that 
the Catholic Church most emphatically repudiates the doctrine that the Pope or 
the Church could absolve men from any just and binding obligation. The evi- 
dence we find in a letter of IMichael Dohen}', addressed to Henry A. Wise in 
the New York " Honest Truth." In 1825, the Irish Bishops were summoned 
before a committee of the British House of Commons. Amongst themselves 



144 

tliey selected tlie most eminent and learned of their body to represent ttem. 
Being apprised of the subjects of the enquiry, they had ample time to examine 
and weiiih and duly consider them. Their answers are brifiy cited : 
Docto^i' Doyle is asked — 

<' Can the Pope absolve the king's subjects from their allegiance ?" A. " No." 
Q. " Is it in his power to deprive the king of his kingdom T' A. " It is not, 

Q. " Can he by any means excuse a Catholic from his allegiance ?" 
A. " Most undoubtedly not?" 

Q. '< Is the claim that some Popes have set up to temporal authority opposed 
to Scripture and tradition ?" 

A. " In my opinion it is opposed to both." 
The llio-ht Rev. Dr. Curtis, Archbishop of Armagl in the same examination, 
and in answer to the same question, says : _ 

<'I do not think it is very conformable to it. I do not say exactly it is op- 
posed to it; but certainly he has received no such power from Christ?" 
Doctor Murray, Archbishop of Dublin — 

" The Pope's authority is wholly confined to his spiritual authority, accor?!ing 
to the words of our Savour, ' My kingdom is not of this world.' ^ His spiritual 
power does not allow him to dethrone kings or absolve their subjects from the 
alleo-ianee due to them ; and any attempt of that kind I would consider con- 
trary to Scripture and tradition." 
Dr. Kelly, Archbishop of Tuam— 

"It never was admitted as a doctrine of the Catholic church that the Pope 
had temporal authority outside his own dominions." 

Mr. Dobeny also refers to the evidence of tiie two most eminent men who 
had theretofore written on the subject in England — Doctor Milner and Father 

O'Leary and who had exposed the false pretence that the Pope could dispense 

with the obligations of an oath. He next comes to our own rimes and refers to 
the important case of the College of Maynooth in Ireland. It is (we quote his 
languaire) " a Catholic institution, endowed by the ultra Protestant Government 
of I^n'^laud, and has been now for over half a century the teeming cause of re- 
liinoub^ acerbity. No wonder that it should, when we consider that by London 
law a priest was a "felon," to be educated for the priosthood "felony," and to 
officiate as a priest " high treason." How there came to be a Catholic college 
is explained in this way : 

"Notwithstanding the law, priests were ordained and mass was offered, at 
first in caves and mountain gorges, and afterwards in out-of-the way places in 
broad day-light. The priests were educated abroad. France, Spain, Italy, 
opened asylums of education for the exiled Irish Catholics, and some came home 
as priests, at the risk of being led to the gallows. Strange thing.s foreshadowed 
themselves in the literature and feeling of the continent of Europe, and Eng- 
land, beginning to be afraid to bang the priest, and apprehending that his 
French education was Jacobinical or rather Jacobite, besought her of providing 
a home education for him, with a view to JcnationaUze him. Hence the college 
of Mavnooth — an '' invention of the enemy." However, it by no means an- 
swered' the end. The endowment, up to 1845, was only £ 30,000 a year. It 
was then increased to £ 50,000, but without, as it would seem, becoming any 
more h>yal. Since then, bigotry, biting at the wires of its cage, which grows 
narrower and narrower daily, has been nibbling at it, and notwithstanding all 
that has been said and sworn to the contrary, repeating the pretence that tho 
Pope claimed the deposing and absolving power. 

" In 1852 a committee was appointed to inquire into the orthodoxy of the 
College, who have just issued their report. They exan)ined the professors, and 
asked them the same questions the Bishops answered iu 1825. 



145 

^'I quote first from Doctor O'lTanlon : 

*' With regard to the first doctrine of Gallioan Liberties, is it not a question 
in dispute among Roman Catholicd? It is ; tho' we may regard the opinion 
■which attributes either direct or indirect temporal power to the Pope or to the 
church as being almost obsolete. Tlie only writers who have attempted to re- 
vive it in modern times are Dr. Brownson, a recent convert to Catholicity, and 
an editor of an American review, and the famous Lamennais, who has been 
condemned b}' the Holy See, for the extravagance and eccentricify of certain 
doctrines which he held. I might here observe that in a document addressed 
from Home by Cardinal Antoneii, to the Irish Catholic Prelates, so early r.s 
1791, it is espressly affirmed that the Holy See regards that man as a calum- 
niator, who imputes to it the tenet, ' that an oath to kings seperafed from the 
Catholic communion can be violated, or that it is lawful for the Bishop of Borne 
to invade their rights and dominions.' Pope Gregory XVI., also, not only in 
his encyclical letter of 1832, but in his reply to the declaration of the Prussian 
government in 1838, lays down principles which appear to me to be irreconcila- 
ble with the opinion which invests the Pope or the church with direct or indi- 
rect temporal authority. lie adopts the doctrine of Tertullian, and some others 
of the early fathers, that no cause whatever can justify the deposition or de- 
thronement of a king, and that the people should patiently endure every sort of 
tyranny and oppression rather than have recourse to so violent and dangerous a 
remedy. The doctrine is as incompatible with the deposing power of the Pope 
as it is repugnant to the ideas of political writers of these countries. 

"I close with this quotation, hoping that I have satisfied you that in es- 
pousing our cause you have not committed 3'ourself to the rant of men like 
this Brownson, who trade upon credulity and superstition." 

This evidence should be sufficient to satisfy all reasonable men, but we mean 
to clinch the nail and to show what Catholics think and say, here at our own 
fireside.a, upon the soil of Virginia, in this metropolis of the Old Dominion. 
With this object in view, we ask attention to the following correspondence be- 
tween James Lyons, Esq., and the Catholic Bishop of Puchmond. His frank 
replies to the enquiries addressed to him, should satisfy all but besotted and 
bigoted Know Nothings, that the cliarge of the danger to our institutions, from 
the temporal power of the Pope, are the wildest fancies, the most unsubstantial 
dreams. No additional word of comment can be necessary to dispel the terrible 
alarm which has been conjured up by the patriotic and pious managers of the 
Secret Order, and their zealous co-laborers, the Know Nothing press and 
orators : 

"Richmond, April 18, 1855. \ 
To Bishop McGlll, 

Rev. Sir : — Having heard and read much declamation against the Catholk-s, 
because of the alleged temporal power of the Pope, I take the liberty to inquire 
of you whether the Catholics in Virginia do acknowledge any temporal alle- 
giance to the Pope; and whether, if this country could be and was assailed or 
invaded by the army of the Pope, (if he had one,) or by any other Catholic 
power, the Catholic citizens of this country, no matter where born, would not 
be as much bound to defend the Flag of America, her rights and liberty, as 
any native-born citizen would be; and whether the performance of that duty 
would conflict with any oath, or vow, or other obligation of the Catholics? 

My purpose is, with your leave, to make this note and your reply to it 
public. 

With high respect, your friend, &c., 

JAMES LYONS." 
10 



[ 146 

" EicHMOND, Ya., April 19, 1855. 

I>v?ar Sir : — The letter, wliicb you have addressed to me, contuins three ques- 
tion-^, to which you ask au answer, with a view to publication. 

First Question. — " Whether the Catholics in Virginia do acknowledge any 
any temporal allegiance to the Pope ?" 

To this I anssver, that unless there be in Virginia some Italians who owe al- 
legiance to the Pope as a temporal Prince, because they were born in his States, 
and are not naturalized citizens of this country, there are no Catholics in A'^ir- 
ginia who ov/e or acknowledge any temporal allegiance to the Pope. 

Second Question. — <' Whether, if this country could be and was assailed and 
invaded by the army of the Pope, (if he had one,) or by any other Catholic 
power, the Catholic citizens of this country, no matter where born, would not 
be as much bound to defend the Flag of America, her rights and liberty, as any 
native-born citizens would be ?" 

Answer : To me, the hypothesis of an invasion of our countr}' by the Pope, 
seems an absurdity; but should he come with armies to establish temporal do- 
Hiinion here, or should any other Catholic power make such an attempt, it is 
my conviction that all Catholic citizens, no matter where born, who enjoy the 
benefits and franchises of the Constitution, would be conscienciously bound, 
like native-born citizens, to defend the flag, rights and liberties of the Republic, 
and repel such invasion. 

Third Question. — "Whether the performance of that duty would conflict 
with any oath, or vow, or other obligation of the Catholic?" , 

Answer: Calholics, reared in the Church as such, have not the custom of 
taking any oaths or vows, except the baptismal vows, " to renounce the Devil, 
bis works and pomps," Persons converted to the faith, or those receiving de- 
grees in Theology, may be required to take the oath contained in the creed of 
Pius IV. of obedience to the Pope, which, as far as I know, has always been 
understood and interpreted to signify a spiritual obedience to him as head of the 
Church, and not obedience to him as a temporal prince. Eishops, on their con- 
secration, also take an oath which, in our country, is different from the old form 
used in Europe. But none of these vows, oaths, and no other obligation of 
which I am aware, conflicts with the duty of a citizen of the United States to 
defend the flag and liberties of his country. 

In conclusion, allow me to ctate that, as we have no article of faith teaching 
that the Pope, of divine right, enjoys temporal power as head of the Church, 
vpbatever some theologians or writers may have said on this point, must, like 
my answers to your inquiries, be considered as opinions for which the writers 
themselves only can be held responsible. 

I Yours, very truly, &c. 

\ J. McGILL, Bishop of Richmond. 

To James Lyons, Esq." 



\ 



THE WINCHESTER CONVENTION. 

About five months after the Democratic f=tate ticket was put forth, on the 
14th March, the Know-Nothing party, trying to imitate as much as possible 
the Hartford Convention, of Federal blue-light notoriety, assembled in secret 
at the town of Winchester, for the purpose of nominating a state ticket. 
Never before in the history of Virginia did any party, for the purpose named, 
assemble in privacy and secrecy to make a state nomination. We suppose 



147 

that t!io famous Gun Powder plot could not have been concocted under more 
binding oaths and cautious secrecy. Guy Fawkes himself would have owned 
its organization as his handiv/ork. We have never seen the names of but 
three delegates that were present, and these were appended to the schedule 
of Basis Principles which was soon promulgated in the name of the conven- 
tion and to the correspondence informing the candidates of their nomination. 
Who were there, and what was said and done, in all human probability will 
never be known to the generation now in existence. There could be nothing 
discovered by examining the registers of the hotels, for the delegates used 
fictitious names in recording themselves. What shall we think of a state 
convention Avliich meets and registers imdcr aliases? Are we to believe that 
this party loves darkness rather than liglit because their deeds are evil? 

The Examiner contained the following amusing notice of the body and its 
actions : 

The Winchester Convention. — After long and painful labors, com- 
menced in the long cotlin-like garret of Stebbins' china-shop, in this city, 
some weeks since, and adjourned over, for reasons unknown, to Winchester, 
a salubrious village of this state, the Know-Xothings have made their anx- 
iously expected nominations. 

A Winchester paper describes this gathering of midnight accouchers as a 
slim, dreary and melancholy squad of battered Whigs, the aggregate record 
of whose disappointments and defeats would fill a volume considerably ex- 
ceeding the dimensions of the doom's-day book. There were about airmany 
Know-Nothings in attendance, that paper says, as there were delegates to 
the celebrated Hartford Convention ; and, of that number, it is said that 
there was a soliianj Democrat, whose local habitation and name we have not 
heard. The rest were, of course, hungry and famished Whigs — ex-congress- 
men, ex-state senators, ex-members of the House of Delegates, ex-shonffs, 
ex-constables, ex-magistrates, ex-coroners and ex-militia otticers of every 
rank. It was a grand carnival of political cripples, the maimed, mutilated 
remains of defeats and disappointments without number. Dante, in his 
excursion through the infernal regions, might have stumbled upon such a 
conclave of the political damned, drinking hot brimstone punches, and toast- 
ing, at their leisure, on gridirons and pitchforks ; but never before in this 
state was there such a lifeless convention. The congressional, senatorial and 
muster precincts gave up their dead, and we question whether there wns as 
much vitality in the whole convention as there is in one healthy Democrat. 

We have said that this melancholy assemblage of Chelsea invalids was 
Whig. Its presence perfumed the little town of Winchester with the odor 
of church-yard Whiggery. The maimed survivors of many a sad a id luck- 
less fight, with the gallant Virginia Democracy, were seeking prominent 
places in the council chamber of the Know-Nothings, as the afflicted of scrip- 
tural times struggled to be in the front rank around the healing wafers of 
Bethesda. No man, we venture to say, from what we have heard of the 
Winchester Convention, could have been present, and beheld that collection' 
of Whig partisans and leaders, without denouncing Know-Nothingism as the 
very latest and most vicious invention of the old Federal enemy, that turns 
up with a new name, but the same old principles and vices, every few years^ 

There was nothing Democratic about it. The shameful spectacle was pre- 
sented to an intelligent people, of delegates appointed by secret lodges, bound' 
by frightful oaths, pledged upon the Holy Word of God to the work of pro- 
scription and persecution, meeting with closed doors, and seeking to take 



148 

from the people all free agency in the selection of their representatives. It 
presented the contrast of Cataline's gathering of disaffpctecl and disappointed 
colleagues to that of the people of Rome flocking in the open air to listen to 
the fearless eloquence of Cicero. There are times beyond question — times 
when nations, like individuals, become the victims of temporary insanity — 
when Reason, tired of sitting on her throne, vacates it for a while, when 
Folly "takes the chair," and misrule becomes the order of the day. Good 
and true men are, at such moments, disregarded ; and the temporary sove- 
reign appoints befitting courtiers. Such dynasties compress much evil in the 
few months of their existence, and then are overthrown and become, a by- 
word and reproach. 

Secret conclaves to select candidates for the people, in a country where 
the purity of the elective franchise depends upon its freedom from mystery 
and concealment, illustrate the inauguration of such an unfortunate era as we 
have just referred to. It is a new phase of that spirit of political folly and 
error which made the unreflecting and unprincipled fall down and worship 
log-cabins, coon-skins, hard cider, and other barbarous symbols, in 1840. It 
is a revival of that incarnation of insincerity, fraud and duplicity — "the no 
party movement" — by which the Whig party skulked into power in 1848, 
and then laughed at the silly Democratic gulls who were seduced from their 
party but to rue their treason in sackcloth and ashes. 

The Winchester Convention, in spirit, intent and arrangement, was a new 
device — a fresh snare of Federalism set fjpr that class of Democrats who 
have again and again been caught and plucked by a political adversary, who, 
like the modern Greek, substitutes cunning for boldness and courage. The 
solitar}- Democrat who is said to have formed the popular element in this 
Convention of, it is said, sixty-eight delegates, properly represents the exact 
proportion of Democracy in the Know-Nolhing party in Virginia. It is 
made up in the ratio of sixty-eight parts of rank, bitter and most uncom- 
promising Federalism to one of bogus, pinchbeck Democracy. The Federal 
pill is coated, not with fine white sugar, but with a compound of treacle and 
coffee brown. This new' organization the late ludicrous Convention at Win- 
chester has convinced every body, possesses no actual strength in Virginia. 
The proud, inflexible, consistent Henry Clay Whigs will never give up the 
banner of "the old Clay Gaard," torn and ragged as it is, to march under 
the black flag of a secret society. The unambitious, intelligent gentlemen of 
the Whig party, men depending upon their plantations, not upon otRce for sup- 
port, would sooner die than exchange pass-words, oaths and grips with slippery 
professional politicians in the garrets of china shops. They hold too sacred the 
memory of their great leaders to deny the name given them by the noble 
Kentuckian, and become Know-Nothings. In spite of the example of the 
solitary Democrat in the Winchester Convention, nine hundred and ninety- 
nine of our party would consider it a profanation to abandon the faith of 
their fathers, and become disciples of Judson, the convict, Bennet, the out- 
law, and Ullman, the Hindoo, and regard such a solicitation as affording 
ample justification for knocking the verdant author of the proposition down. 
Know-jSlothingism may fester in the, townis and villages, among Whig shop- 
keepers, but there is a power in the countr}', among the Democratic faimers, 
that will crush it out. . 

Sam's Unsuccessful and Successful Courtships. — It is a perfectly 
notorious fact, that long before the Winchester Convention, the chief con- 
spirators of the new order of Jesuits, in this state, like the " Father of 
Evil," went about covertly throwing temptations in the way of nearly every 
available and distinguished Democrat. Acting upon the Walpole theory, 
that "every public man had his price," they essayed to secure for their pur- 
pose a strong, healthy Democrat — thus confessing that there was no member 



149 

of the order who possessed the confidence of the people — not one who was 
sufficiently strong to bear the odium and opprobrium of avowed Know- 
Mothingiiim. 

At the very time when they were everywhere boasting of their strength, 
they were seeking for what they did not have in their organization — viz : a 
prominent Democrats. We could name a dozen Democrats who indignantly 
spurned their proposals, and kicked their bribes out of doors. Tliey crawled 
about like poor, rejected suitors, humbly entreating prominent Democrats to 
accept their nominations. But of the members of our party, with a single 
grain of vitalit}-, not one would touch their offer. It was only when they 
went down among tiie dead men that a few hungry ghosts snapped at their 
proposals. 

Letcher, Holladay, Brockenbrough, Leake, and other leading Democrats, 
are known to have declined the "honor of the alliance." Never was an 
ugly and uncouth suitor so unfortunate as was Sam. He ran the gauntlet of 
"kicks," and became the by-word and the laughing-stock of all well-to-do 
Democrats. His efforts to "get a live Democrat" were as fruitless as were 
the attempts of men of little capital and less credit to raise their bank kites 
during the monetary pressure of December. Sam's addresses were all re- 
jected, and his notes of entreaty^ protested by all of our first and second 
class Democrats. In the earl;; days of his courtship, Sam, like other unsuc- 
cessful gentlemen of our acquaintance, looked too high. He- fancied for his 
first loves Democrats in the bloom of youth, with good prospects, and a very 
broad margin between themselves and a state of collapsed and toothless old 
fogyism. He professed to turn up his priggish little Federal nose, (inush- 
room and parvenu as he is,) at the eldeily and neglected maiden and widow- 
ladies of our party, who, for the last quarter of a century, have vainly pined 
for a suitor, however uncouth and valueless the much courted article. Soured 
by a thousand disappointments, left behind, outstripped by younger and more 
vigorous rivals, these forgotten old Democratic spinsters and mouldering 
widows, would have taken the devil for a partner, rather than not have at 
least one grab at the fleshpots. When a hard and melancholy experience 
had taught Sam that no Democrat who had anything to lose by accepting his 
" honorable proposals " would listen to them, "he, for the first time, discover- 
ed that there was a small but excessively recherche assortment of verde 
antiques, coyly ogling him from the back benches, and recalling his youthful 
recollections of the song about — 

Foiir-and-twenty old maids 
All in a i-ow, 
, Dressed in yellow, pink and red, — 

Poor old maids. 

With whatever indignation blushing young misses like Holladay, Letcher, 
Brockenbrough, 8cc., &c., had repelled his advances, it was obvious that these 
ladies were of much easier dispositions, and they had what Sam wanted [but 
in an eminently diluted state] — to wit : " Democratic blood." 

Like the venerable females of a certain Italian city, who, when it was 
sacked by the French, after boldly waiting at the street corners all day, in 
the midst of the invaders, without experiencing any violence at their hands, 
Avent home grumbling that " they had heard the French were wicked fellows, 
but that they had not found them so," these antiquated Democrats had not 
?^eQn much of Sam's reputed gallantry. Still they hoped on, and when Sam 
had failed to get the young ladies, in a fit of desperation he put the whole 
battalion of " venerable and unrecognized merit" in a flutter by seeking a 
consort from their midst. " Really," said Miss Madison Monroe Flexible, to 



150 

her aged friend, Miss JefTerson Giles Castaway, "this fellow Sam is a very 
nice young man," and she flirted with the aforesaid Sam after a very spa- 
vined and octagenarian fashion. And let us not be understood as blaming 
any of these venerable spinsters and matrons for their choice. Let no Dem- 
ocrat, in the flush and vigor of early youth, sit too harshly in judgment up- 
on those who, after pining, neglected and disregarded, for half a centu- 
ry, waiting for an eligible Democratic offer, in despair accepts even Sam. 
Pity the sorrows of our venerable friends, recollect their long, dism.al years 
of dreary waiting, youth sobering into middle age, middle age turning into 
the sear and yellow leaf of old age — and Sam the first oiler. Ye young, ad- 
mired and vigorous Hollrdays, Letchers, Leakes, &c., rejoicing in a pleni- 
tude of eager beaux, think kindly and sorrowingly of the forlorn and bereaved 
widow Beale, whose cheerless and neglected fireside in the far west Sam has 
gladdened by his refreshing presence. Recollect the long and involuntary • 
solitariness of that estimable person, and drop a tear rather than a curse 
upon the sin of disappointed old age. 

For when time and disappointments have sapped the best of us — when we 
have waited long and waited vainly for the expected bridegroom, and he 
overstays his time, we may at a weak moment pounce upon the first substi- 
tute that turneth providentially up. For there cannot be much love between 
Sam and his new brides. He took, we incline to the opinion, the venerable 
Beale and the flexible Patton, because the fresh, the young, the vigorous of 
our party refused him, and they, heaven forgive their old souls, took Sam 
because it was obvious that no Democratic suitor would ever claim their 
hands. It will be a barren union, and we predict a speedy divorce a vinculo 
matrimonii. They may not live long enough to lepentof their marriage with 
a fellow of low degree, but Sam will find that his Democratic consorts will 
bring him nothing but the recollections of their early loves and disappoint- 
ments, and that he will stand forth in the list of Bcale's lovers, and alas for 
his prospect for domestic happiness ! Mr. Patton treasures tender souvenirs 
of more political loves than did the scandalous Don Giovanni of affairs of 
the heart. 

Nor, if the character of Sam's Democratic conquests are understood by 
the public, will they allow him much peace upon their slender jointures of 
respecfiveh' fifteen hundred and seven hundred dollars per annum, v.liilst 
the Whig wife of his bosom, the luck}' and fascinating Flournoy, will get 
five thousand dollars a year, and a house besides. Whether successful or 
unsuccessful, he is destined to have no peace in his polygamous household. 
If Biigham Sam comes home ladened with the oj)ima spolin of Democracy, 
the disinterested Beale will flare up when she looks up from behind her 
official wash-tub and contrasts her homely attire and seven hundred dollars 
per annum, with the costly outfit and plentiful pocket money of Mrs. "Sam" 
Flourno3\ Nor will the generous and impulsive Patton regard the trifle of 
one thousand five hundred dollars per annum a sufficient recompense for his 
having given his talents and respectability to a plcbean like Sam. Indeed, 
much to the discredit of Sam, it is rumored -that the haughty Patton, whilst 
requiring the most ardent manifestations of affection from Sam, gives him 
nothing but the Platonic power of a name, and treats^ his warm-hearted ad- 
vances with marked coolness. 

It is idle for any rational man to suppose that' antiquated but aristocratic 
political dowagers, like Sam's legal consorts, when they bestow the odds and 
ends of worn out political affections upon such a mushroom, ever bring with 
them a large dowry of love. The idea of such a thing is laughable. Those 
who, in the enthusiastic and disinterested desertion of early blushing love, 
gave their hearts to the gallant Jackson, then transferred their more expe- 
rienced and matured affections upon the irresistible Clay, and then distributed 



151 

the small re.sitliium of in'uldle aged esteem among such men as Polk. Cass 

and Pierce, have notliing that is worth bestowinsr upon Sam. We reoret to 

• t • • • • 

ilistnrh his polygamous bliss by croaking predictions of unhappiness — but the; 

truth must be told. 



THE WINCflESTER TICKET. 

The result of this notable gathering was the nomination of the follov/hig 
gubernatorial ticket, viz : 

For Governor— THOMAS S. FLOURNOY, of Halifax. 
For Lt. Governor— JAMES M. H. BEALE, of Mason. 
For Attorney General— JOHN M. PATTON, of Richmond. 

The country had been led to expect that none but new men, uncontami- 
nated by party and undistinguished as partizans, would have been presented 
by an organization which eschewed all partisan prejudices and disavowed 
all partisan affiliations and objects. We shall discover, in the comments of 
the Democratic press upon these nominations, whether these anticipations 
were realized. The Examiner received the announcement of the nomina- 
tions in the following strain of ridicule and narrative : 

The Winchester Ticket. — The elements of the Know-Nothing ticket 
present a laughable illustration of Sam's utter disregard of his solemn 
pledges. The chief object we have heard for months past of this new organ- 
ization was the killing off of old and decayed politicians, and the promotion 
of fresh, talented and accomplished men, able and ambitious, yet bearing 
about them the marks of no disappointments and defeats. We expected 
that the Know-Nothings would not be mere political resurrectionists, and that 
they would at least refrain from giving the people of Virginia the dry bones 
of the forgotten dead. 

We had been led to believe that their nominees would possess all the fresh- 
ness, youth and virgin purity of the early spring flowers that so sweetly and 
modestly peep out of the bosom of mother earth about the Ides of March. 
Indeed, like a gallant young fellow, we all expected Sam's Winchester nom- 
inees to be a charming bouquet of early spring flowers — not a hoi-tus siccus 
of badly preserved specimens. Is there any of the violet's freshness about 
Flournoy, or of the lily's virginity about Beale, or of the daisy's simplicity 
about Mr. Patton ? We have a ticket made up of the survivors of past hon- 
ors and offices — from the head to the tail of the ticket we have " ex-honora- 
bles," all of whom had to be exhumed for their new missions. Thev were 
dug up, for there was no germinating or sprouting elements in them. As far 
as Messrs. Patfon and Beale were concerned — we speak knowingly when we 
say that, as far as their political prospects in the Democratic party were con- 
cerned — they were as dead as any ancient Thcban that Gliddon ever un- 
rolled. A close examination of the ticket will convince our readers of the 
truth of what we say. 

The Necrology and Resurrection of Thomas Stanhope Flournoy. 
It must have struck every one very forcibly when the Winchester ticket was 
announced, that it w^as constructed precisely like that famous animal, the 
Kangaroo, with all of its strength in its hind legs and tail, for, by some sin- 
gular freak, Mr. Patton, a man of distinction and decided talents, but of 



152 

flexible back-bone, was put at the tail, and Mr. Flournoy at the head of the 
ticket. The Kangaroo illustration will, however, help us to an explanation, 
for, as in the case of that animal, whilst the hind legs and tail perforin all the 
hard work, the weak and idle fore paws, being nearest the mouth, secure all 
tlie food. 

This interesting fact explains the construction of th.e ticket. * 

The majority of Whig Know-Nothings who cllected the Winchester nomi- 
nations were too keen for the spoils to give the executive chief otlice to the 
political iViends of the minority of Democratic Know-Nothings. 

The spoils department of the hybrid triumvirate is, as a matter of course, 
in the hands of a bitter, uncompromising Whig. Flournoy takes the oyster, 
and the two shells are divided with the most refreshing generosity between 
Patton and Beale, or rather Beale and Patton, for they appear to have put 
poor Mr. Patton to the foot of the table — even Beale taking precedence. To 
give the remnants of the Federal party in this state a chance at the flesh- 
pots of the state offices, the Federal Know-Nothings put one of their own 
men at the head of the distributing department. They had an eye, every 
one of them, doubtless, to the fish, flour, guano, tobacco, and lumber interests 
of the Old Dominion. Hence they have put Lepidus in the chair, and An- 
thony and Augustus at very humble side tables. 

If the ticket triumphs, Lepidus gets five thousand dollars, a handsomely 
furnished house, and control over the much coveted flour, guano, lumber, 
tar, and tobacco, whilst Anthony gets what will be equivalent to an overseer's 
wages every other year, and Augustus receives the salary of a tide waiter in 
the custom-house. Standing in front of his palace with a plate of broken 
victuals, Lepidus will whistle, and a huge flock of starving Whig cormorants 
M'ill flutter around him, each of whom will receive more than either of the 
other members of the triumvirate. 

We shall make no excuse for briefly attempting to explain to our readers 
who Mr. Flournoy is ! He is, in the first place, a gentleman by birth and 
education, and like Mr. Patton, (and for aught we know to the contrary, Mr. 
Beale,) a man upon whose private character there is not a spot or blemish. 
In chivalry and integrity he is every way the equal of Mr. Wise, or of any 
other Democrat or Whig in Virginia. But he is the very embodiment of 
Whiggery, a man, we believe, in whose veins there flows as much Federal 
blood as in those of any man in the commonwealth. He hates and loathes 
Democracy as he does a mean action, or even the Pope or an Irishman. His 
Federalism has been of the most consistent character, and his comparative 
obscurity alone prevents every Democrat from associating his name with 
bank, tarifl', distribution, and the rest of the Federal abominations now dead 
and buried. 

In that section of Virginia in which Mv. Flournoy once figured as a poli- 
tician, his memory is cherished through the broad expanse of several muster 
precincts, by the shattered remains of his party. For Mr. Flournoy's polit- 
ical life was of insect duration, and it was as brief as the constitution 
allowed. A valorous Democratic lion and chivalrous unicorn of the same 
political family were seven years ago fighting for a seat in Congress from the 
strong Democratic Halifax district ; Mr. Flournoy slipped in and transferred, 
for the brief period of two years, his obscurity from the county courts of 
Halifax and Charlotte to the halls of Congress. Our memory retains no 
vivid or distinct recollection of what he did during his two years of public 
life. 

Like most lucky men who have crept into office through a split or cleft in 
the Democratic party, Mr. Flournoy tried to repeat the experiment a second 
time, but " the party" closed upon him with the grip and snap of a first rate 
steel trap, and after a few convulsive jerks and wiggles, Flournoy died. Po- 



153 

litlcally he was declared, by competent judges, "a beautiful corpse," Avhich, 
no doubt, he was. 

His intended victim, but actual conqueror, that old and honored Democrat, 
Avcrett, thinking that the rash young man was dead as Julius Ca'sar, extri- 
cated him I'rom the trap which had closed with such fatal force upon him, 
buried him with pious and allectionate care, heaped up the dirt, and patted 
the mound as smoothly as possible, and wiping a tear from his eccentric- 
looking spectacles, went his way to Washington. It may be well to make a 
note of the fact, that the ever true and faithful Powell acted the sexton to 
Goggin that same year, but had to keep his purturbed ghost still with a cedar 
stake. Although as decently interred as man could have been, and killed, 
to boot, by a regular old school physician, Flournoy would not lie still and 
let the worms have their due, and the time which Averett spent, much to 
the benefit of his constituents as a true southern representative, in Washing- 
ton, the restless Flournoy spent in scratching out of his narrow red-land ten- 
ement. And when the estimable doctor once more started upon a grand 
tour through his district, the ghost of Flournoy, " thin and shadowy, traveled 
by his side." "Averett, does murder sleep?" shrieked the ghost of Flour- 
noy; and the dead man followed the living one, going through all the motions 
of a candidate for Congress, in a most shocking and heart-rending manner. 
But the people were so much shocked at the a})parition of their beloved 
and lamented Flournoy, flitting about from court-house to court-house, and 
shrieking its sepulchral notes t>om stump and hustings, that they determined, 
from feelings of humanity, to dispel the delusion under which the apparition 
labored, by electing Averett a second time. They did so, and the troubled 
ghost, exorcised of the ugly demon of ambition, sunk with a sigh into its 
grave, and Averett again heaped up the clay, and left the now quiet dead for 
a second visit to Washington. There was something so amiable, refined and 
respectable in the appearance of Flournoy's ghost, that Averett treated it 
with a mildness which, in the parallel case of Goggin, Powell could not con- 
sistently with his own welfare einploy. 

Thus terminated the brief and troubled career of the politician Flournoy. 
He came upon the stage when his favorite federal measures were tottering to 
their fall, and he went down with them, involved in the common ruin of his 
party. Sf^veral times since his death there have been ugly splits in the Dem- 
ocratic party in Flournoy's old district, but there was no Flournoy to slip 
into Congress. Nothing short of the trumpet of the Know-Nothing " Ga- 
briel" could have aroused him from his long sleep. For years ambition came 
not near the grave of Flournoy. All of him that was political, his friends 
said, was dead, very dead, and in the counties of the Halifax district the legal 
Thomas Stanhope Flournoy practiced his profession, we have heard, in a 
quiet, but most orderly and respectable manner. All political dress having 
been cast out of him, his explorations in the technical jungles of the Code, 
and his struggles in the quagmires of Mayo's Guide, are said to have been 
most creditable. 

Honest and industrious in the plain and unornamented details of his pro- 
fession, he is said to have secured the confidence of W'higs and Democrats. 
The fates, as we have seen, had decreed, however, that at the dead hour of 
midnight, the Know-Nothings should dig up the political remains of Flournoy, 
and thus end his career of usefulness as an attorney, without imparting over 
two months and a half of galvanic political vitality to the bones of the de- 
ceased. ' 

From the thousand rumors which have found their w'ay to the public, from 
the secret eouncils of the Know-A'^othing Convention, we entertain no doubt 
of its having resolved itself into a committee of resurrectioni.^s, surgeons 
and practical anatomists, to overhaul, compare and examine the remains of 



154 

every Whig politician in Virginia of the least note or notoriety. Tt is sus- 
pected that, knowing the character of the subject with which they had to 
deal, the delegates were well provided with all the implements for body- 
snatching, and with dark lanterns, chloride of lime, galvanic batteries and 
volatile salts. Each delegation, it is supposed, brought its local dead, and a 
sweet set they must have been. Phew ! Winchester will smell of them as 
long as Hartford will be fragrant with the odor of the old blue light Federal- 
ists. And what a set of mummies must have been then and there unrolled! 
What a charnel-house; what a rich rare and varied assortment of "Whig ex- 
hanorabjes"' in every stage of decay. The catacombs of Paris, the pyramids 
of Egyptian Cheops, must hereafter hide their diminished heads. The ana- 
tomical museums have been all eclipsed. To catalogue and systematically 
arrange this strange collection of relics of mortality, would be a task beyond 
our capacities. A second Tamerlane could scarcely make a decent pyramid 
of those battered skulls. 

The purpose and design of the collection was to ascertain whether there 
could be found, within the limits of the commonwealth, the remains of a 
single Whig sufficiently well preserved to respond, by a few muscular jerks, 
to the strongest charge af a Know-Nothing battery. Long and vain is s^aid 
to have been their labors. Down among the dead men they v^'orked long and 
sadly. There was hardly a semblance of life in the whole collection. They 
were as dead as if the ball of a Minie rifle had passed through the skull of 
each of them. They were of the earth, eaithy. 

The Valley delegation, it is said, brought, wrapped up in one of poor Fill- 
more's castaway suits, the gigantic bones of the once lively and ever astute 
Stuart, but the electric shock called into play no tough muscle still clinging 
to its appropriate bone. The canvass for the Reform Convention had left 
nothing in those remains tor a battery to get a muscular jerk out of. 

The Red Land district, it is surmised, respectfully submitted a petition in 
forma pav peris for an examination of Goggin's coffin, but a few broken bones 
and a little dust alone remained of that gallant Whig. 

The faithful delegation from ever loyal Screamerville pressed proudly for- 
ward with the sarcophagus of the terrible Botts, exclaiming, " IT3re's a man 
buried, but not dead — he'll kick and jump for you without touching him up 
with your infernal machine — he's alive, we tell you, don't you hear how he 
kicks and, bellows to get out." But 'the whole college of surgeons, holding 
up their hands and screwing down the corners of their hypocritical mouths, 
said : " Oh, you are mistaken ; Botts has been dead these many years — 
that's an evil spirit you hear kicking up that muss in his colfin, and, to keep 
it from getting out, drive in al few more nails!" And, as the indignant and 
sorrowing Screamervillians tottered off with the vivacious Botts, the chief 
doctor, placing his finger to the side of his proboscis, said sotio x^oce, with a 
wink, " Botts aint dead, but he's dangerous," and the sixty-eight Whigs and 
the solitary Democrat said, "Amen !" And, if street rumors are "to be cre- 
dited, the neglected Botts, although his sarcophagus was not opened, or the 
galvanic battery of the resurrectionists applied, is keeping up an awful shindy 
on his own hook, and frightening the secret order more than he did when he 
smashed their crockery over the china shop of Stebbins of Shockoe Hill. 

And thus the convention proceeded in its melancholy work, passing on 
from Pendleton to Strother, from Strother to Rives, and with no success. 
The mystery of Flournoy's nomination has not leaked out, but it is supposed 
that some de.'-perate individual threatened that if they did not make a selec- 
tion, he would uncork that powerful narcotic, "the extract of ShefTey," and 
the whole college, with a shriek of horror, declared that the remains of the 
next of the Whig defuncts should be honored with their choice, and Flour- 
noy's coffin was the next in order. 



' 155 

The Apotheosis of Reale. — The nomination of J. M. H. Beak, of Ma- 
son, was tlie most natural thinoj in the world. They couhl not do without a 
man from the portion of the State in which he lives, and Beale caught their 
eye, having fallen from grace in the Democratic party and kicked up a little 
filibustering campaign in his Congressional district, which had at the last 
accounts resulted in the partial defection of Mr. J. M. H. Beale. A gentle- 
man perfectly familiar with that section of Virginia from which IMr. Beale 
hails, tells us, that after a long and arduous canvass, Mr. Beale may emerge 
the triumphant leader of from five to twenty followers. Although a very 
well disposed person, and we hear, of good moral character, he is not a man 
whose most intimate friends have ever suspected of the smallest sciniWa of 
talent. And when, in addition to this, we tell our readers what everybody 
in his Congressional di>trict knows, that he is a worn out, brokendown poli- 
tician, turned out to graze by his party, they can form some idea of his 
strength in the We.-«t. It is the slrength'of a cob-web to hold an eagle, or of 
a child to check a locomotive. 

The only recommendation of Mr. Beale was, we imagine, that he wa^^ out 
on his own hook — solitary and alone— for Congress. Or it may have been 
a delicate compliment to the lone Democrat of the Winchester Convention, 
that led tha't body to nominate Beale. That poor delegate having seen half 
a hundred Whig coffins opened, his associates may have, in compliment to 
his fortitude, exhumed Beale. But if they thought to weaken the Demo- 
cratic party in the West by nominating Mr. J. M. H. Beale, that particular 
mistake may be put down as the richest in the whole Winchester^ comedy of 
errors. We can almost, in imagination, hear the peals of inextinguishable 
merriment with which the unflinching Democracy of the Trans-Alleghany 
country will greet Sam's expedient of seducing them by the blandishments 
of the complimentary Beale. 

W^e heard, some years ago, of a young gentleman's essaying to turn over 
the NaturalBridge with a' crowbar,"but that young man's verdancy was not 
equal to that of the W^inchester Convention in using Mr. Beale for turning 
over to Know-Nothingism the ever faithful West. We can see the hardy 
Democracy of that section of the state puLing down the lower eyelid, and 
revolving the four digitals, with the thumb resting on the proboscis for an 
axis, and asking the" unlucky Beale " if he sees anything green." What- 
ever may be his idea of colors, the unreduced Democracy of Western Vir- 
ginia will make him feel very blue before they are done with him. But 
enough of Mr. Beale. We should, perhaps, for the sake of our readers, 
have" before saying a word about him, recollected that '' de minimis lex non 
curat." Perhaps, however, the space devoted to him will be pardoned by 
those who, unlike the people of his own section of country, do not know 
what a harmless old gentleman he is. 

Hon. John M. Patton, the Nnow-Nothing Candidate for Attorney 
General. — The offence of Beale, in accepting the nomination of a secret 
Whig organization, is a very small matter. It is one of those trivial, harm- 
less misdemeanors over which the mayor exercises jurisdiction, a case 
for the local reporters of the daily papers, deserving a record in " Howison's 
Calendar of Crimes," and nothing more. 

But acceptance of a nomination from such a party by a Democratic 
o-entleman of Mr. Patton's ability, position, education, and antecedents, is 
an offence calling for harsh comment and the strongest language of reproba- 
tion. From what we have heard of Mr. Beale, we suppose that he does not 
understand the bearing of his defection if his example should be followed. 
But a man of Mr. Patton's sagacity must have long since discovered that 
Know-Nothingism, North, South, East and West, is a dangerous conspiracy, 



156 

having for its object the overthrow of the National Democratic party. Thus 
far tlrat secret organization to which he has lent the influence of an honored 
name, has been the deadliest and most cruel t'oc to slavery and the Union. 
At midnight, and stealthily as a serpent, it has sought to undermine that 
great temple, dedicated to religious liberty, Avhich Jefferson and Madison 
reared with such anxious and patriotic care. He has seen it, like some 
frightful reptile, creeping South, everywhere crushing in its folds the Na- 
tional Democracy. He has seen that it has everywhere availed itself, in the 
free States, of the temporary unpopularity of the Democratic party — an un- 
popularity growing wholly out of that party's devotion to the South. One 
by one he has seen the firm friends of the South defeated by the most reck- 
less and unprincipled of fanatical Abolition agitators. He has seen the. se- 
cret and stealthy foe drag down the flag of our party in New Hampshire, 
upon whose gi-anite hills it had floated for more than half a century. He 
has seen that no political services, how-ever eminent, have saved the friends 
of the South from the deadly hate of Know-Nothingism. 

He has heard its proud and insolent boasts, that in V^irginia, yes, that the 
enemy of religious liberty will wrest the land of Jefferson from his followers 
and his disciples. The infidels are to climb over the walls of the sacred 
city, and desecrate tlie memory and destroy the principles for which the 
illustrious dead of our own state struggled through evil and good report. He 
knows that if the Democratic o-arrison stands firm, we can "lau2;h a siea;e to 
scorn — but that if that noble party gives way in Virginia, all is lost — yes, 
all is lost; and that the National Democratic party falls beneath the feet of 
a secret political inquisition. At such a moment, W'hen the election in Vir- 
ginia is to decide the fate of Democracy and the Union, Mr. Patton has lent 
the influence of his name to the secret foe. 

Is it strange that this monstrous and unprovoked defection should excite 
the surprise, the grief, the pity, the indignation of those brave and loyal 
Democrats who, at this crisis in the histoiy of our party, expected, as in 
times gone by, to have heard Mr. Patton fighting for the principles, the 
altars, the household gods of Democracy. 

When in the midst of a battle, with a powerful and dangerous foe, we 
have expected prodigies of valor from a favorite General, and the startling 
news ol' his desertion is reported, is it strange that we should pity a man so 
dead to the good opinions of the world as to desert at such a time. 

We envy not the notoriety of that unfortunate human being who shall, by 
binding himself to this Know-Nothing movement, defeat the Democratic 
party in Virginia. Men have, by the magnitude of their offences, been oc- 
casionally hanged in chains by history, for the edification and amazement of 
posterity — but the Democrat who lets the enemy into this old citadel, will 
hang higher than any historical character of our acquaintance, either of 
ancient or modern times. 

It is useless for the apologists of Mr. Patton to say that he is "not a Know- 
Nothing, and that the office "of Attorney General is not a political office." 
He is on the same ticket with Flournoy and Beale : his and their fortunes 
are idissolubly connected, and if the -opposition ticket to the regular Demo- 
cratic ticket triumphs, Mr. Patton trium])hs. And if he is not a Know- 
Nothing, we cannot commend that caution which induces him to accept the 
aid of the party without incurring the odium of membership. We intend to 
indulge in no abuse of Mr. Patton, for respectability and talent entitle him to 
some esteem, even in the unhappy position which he now occupies. 

If over the ruins of the proud old Democratic party of Virginia, he is 
willing to walk into the office of Attorney General, and become the recipient 
of the magnificent salary of fifteen hundred dollars a year, let him, let him 
do so. 



157 

But the future of a man, in his position, cannot be enviable, whether suc- 
cessful or not. On the contrary, the rankness of his offence will be the 
same. For the secret organization, under whose black wing he rests, must 
run its career, from the cradle to the grave, in a few short years. Antago- 
nistic parties and associations, to the JNational Democratic party of this coun- 
try, have sprouted up and rotted down again and again. These short cuts 
to preferment, end invariably in quagmires, as the examples of Wilmot, 
Foote, &c. &c., suificiently demonstrate. It is, perhaps, fortunate that the 
tastes of men differ; ^ut, for one, we would not, for the Presidency and tifty 
thousand dollars per annum for life, be pointed at whilst living, and remem- 
bered when dead, as the Democrat who broke down the Democratic party in 
Virginia, and held oflice during the reign of the Know-Nothings. Of such 
living, as well as posthumous honors and fame, we are (thank God) not 
covetous. 



THE COUNCIL OF TEN". ^ 

The following able discussion of the dangers of the Know-Nothing plan of 
organization was republished with great eiTect in Virginia, from a New 
Hampshire journal: 

[From the New Hampshire Patriot.] 

About five hundred years ago a fearful and mysterious tribunal, bearing this 
name' was established in the republic of Venice. It gradually acquired des- 
potic control over the government and the people. Its deliberations and its 
actions were alike enveloped in the profoundest secrecy. Its meetings were 
held in secret ; it received denunciations against the most virtuous and patri- 
otic citizens in secret, and in secret it conducted its victims, in silence and in 
'gloom, to a sudden and mysterious death. It inquired, sentenced, and pun- 
ished according to what is called "reasons of state." The public eye never 
penetrated its mysteries ; the accused was rarely heard ; he was never con- 
fronted with witnesses ; the condemnation was secret as the inquiry, and the 
punishment undivulged like both. This tribunal gradually acquired control 
of every branch of the government, and exercised despotic power over every 
question. It annulled at pleasure all decrees, degraded members from their 
offices, and even deposed and put to death the chief magistrate. It was an 
object alike of terror and detestation to those whom it oppressed under the 
pretext of protecting their rights. And yet its diabolical cunning prolonged 
its existence until the genius of Napoleon prostrated it in the dust, with so 
many other relics of cruelty and intolerance. 

People of New Hampshire ! there exists at this moment among you a 
Council of Ten, as fearful and as pregnant with danger to your liberties as 
was tliat of Venice to her oppressed citizens. You have been accustomed, 
in the bounty of your hearts, to look upon this republic as beyond danger. 
In company with your fellow-citizens of other states, you -have successfully 
resisted foreign intervention, and repelled with triumph the conquering 
legions of the most arrogant nation on the earth. You have advanced your 
triumphant banners to that proud city which Cortez gloried in adding to the 
Spanish empire. You have scattered the seeds of civilization throughout 
realms before untrodden by any human footsteps but those of the Indian. 
You have &CQn. your population advancing, your wealth increasing, and your 
country teeming with the fruits of physical and intellectual labor. And you 
fondly think that you are safe ; that each of you and your children are, for 



158 

lont:; years, to have a share in a f^ovprnment the very breath of whose nos- 
trils is freedom jof opinion — one of whose cardinal doctrines is an open and 
fearless avowal of principles; and you are proud that you live under a con- 
stitution which permits you to reward intelligence and uprightness by select- 
ing- for your public trusts those among you who are marked by such qualities. 

But be not deceived! The sceptre is even now passing from 5'our grasp, 
and will be irrevocably lost unless you trample in the dust the traitors who 
are clutching at it with all the despair of disappointed ambition. An unholy 
cabal of tifth rate pettifogging lawyers, mouldj political hacks, and Maminon- 
scekin"- parsons, is seeking to wind the coils of the serpent around you, and 
to strangle you in its embrace. The grand council of Knovv-Nothings have 
sworn by the only God they worship — that is, themselves — undying iiatred 
to political freedom and popular supremacy. These decayed aristocrats, these 
sliaineless bigots, these ravening political banditti, these utterly desperate 
traitors to the country that gave them birth, are organizing a scheme whose 
details would strike terror into your hearts if fully disclosed. They have 
combined to destroy every institution that stands in their way, and to pros- 
trate every man who will not do their bidding. Every town has its branch 
of the conspiracy. Secret signs and pass-words and mummeries are used to 
impress the imagination, and unlawful oaths are administered binding the 
unhappy members to subject themselves like slaves and vassals to the dicta- 
tion of "tills terrible oligarchy. r\Ieanwhile the Council of Ten, the control- 
ing power of this infamous conspiracy, squats in its noisome retreat like a 
toad sweltering in its ov^n venom, or a bloated spider spinning its web over 
the state. It sends forth its decrees to its bojid slaves. "Prostrate," it says, 
"this man, for he has too much education! Destroy that one; he is too 
intelli'^-ent 1 Ruin your best friend, for he has too much independence!" 
And with the spectacle before it of triumphant tyranny and bigotr}^ in Mas- 
sachusetts, it confidently expects a like victory over the freemen of New 
Hainpslilre ! But you had better write your names in characters of blood 
upon your thresholds, and escape with your wife and children to some far 
country by the light of your burning houses, than crouch to this insolent 
o!i"-arciiy ! VV hy would you live here when life has lost all that is worth 
livin"- for? when you maybe stabbed by an assassin in the back, or slain 
by an unseen arrow from him you supposed your dearest friend.' Are you 
content to crawl out at twilight like birds of evil omen, to creep into blind 
alleys, to hover around the back "slums" of your cities and villages, to start 
at every passing tread lest some honest man should see you, to move with 
mulUed face and stealthy step, and double upon your tracks as if you were a 
thiel' with the officers of justice in pursuit of you, and with this sickening 
consciousness of shame to group your way to the den where such animals 
herd, and with trembling hand give the mystic signal which admits you into 
this community of sin? And when you are admitted, and the door of the 
pandemonium is closed, are you content to leave all hope behind you, and 
renew before God the oath you have taken to do the bidding of your disreinj- 
table tyrants? It is incredible that any one worlhy of the name and rig!iis 
of a freeman can do this. You will not cast this disgiace upon the motlicrs 
who bore you, and whose veins are tilled with the blood of '76. You will 
not thus bastardize your descent from the men of the revolution ! No, leave 
that to the abolitionists, who, with philanthropy upon their tongues, have 
treason and murder in their hearts! Leave it to the traitors who prayed that 
the Mexicans would welcome your fellow-citizens " wilh bloody hands to 
hospitable graves." *• 

Is it supposed that this language is too strong, and that these are unwar- 
rantable charges? Depend upon it, the half is not yet told. No faction in 
the history of our country has ever struggled through its vicious life that ha3 



159 

been one-half so dangerous as this secret organization. Its only avowed 
bond of union is a shame and disgrace. It is a standing libel upon all that 
has made America the refuge of the oppressed. By it every man is pio- 
scribed who is either a Catholic himself or whose wife is a Catholic. This 
includes the patriotic Gaston of North Carolina, the venerable Charles Car- 
roll of Carrollton, and other signers of the immortal Declaration of Indepen- 
dence, as well as the present admirable and learned chief justice of the Uni- 
ted States, and many others as pure and patriotic men as can be found in the 
country. And every man is to be proscribed, no matter how honest and 
intelligent, who came to this country at the age of twenty, until he is forty- 
one years old! What shall we say, then, of the devoted Lafayette, the gal- 
lant Sterling, the chivalrous IMontgomery — of Pulaski, the brave and gene- 
rous — of the statesman Gallatin ? — of the thousands of noble souls wlio shed 
their blood for us, and counselled with our fathers in the stormy days of the 
republic ? But no! "America for the Americans," and the "Americans for 
the Know-Nothings !" This is the secret spur — this is the " exceeding great 
reward," that they shall lay the rod on the backs of the people, and the peo- 
ple shall kiss it, and smile and beg them, if it is not too much trouble, to lay 
it on a little harder! This they anticipate, and this they are determined to 
accomplish, though all the rights of humanity, the constitution, the laws, 
every public right, every private right, should stand in their way. The pal- 
triest pettifogger — the shabbiest political hack — is of more value than every 
man among us who ever breathed the air of Europe, in the eyva of this ruth- 
less and intolerant Council of Ten. 

Hereafter, when this wretched faction fills a dishonorable grave, and its 
carcass reeks with political corruption, how can any man stand up before the 
world without hiding his face, when it is cast up to him that he has labored 
to introduce that v.'orse than Egyptian slavery, when a free citizen dare not 
vote as he desires, but obeys the insolent orders of this tyrannical Council of 
Ten ? What will become of American honor, at home and abroad, when a 
mob of despotic adventurers shall make the laws? The follies and ab.-urdi- 
ties of Jacobinism in France were so extreme that it was said of it that "it 
would have been a farce if it had not been for murder." And so with this 
faction; its silly pass-words, its ridiculou-s ceremonies, its contemptible bal- 
derdash, would make it only a laughing stock, if all this nonsense did not 
conceal a deep-laid conspiracy against freedom. Compared with their intol- 
erant proscription, Austrian tyranny is endurable, and police spies become 
respectable. But, thank God, there is lile and vitality in American freedom 
yet. Altered, indeed, radically changed, must we be from the principles of 
our glorious ancestors, if our political liberties are to be delivered, bound and 
unresisting, into the custody of such a set of political jailors. There are 
despotisms maintained by such genius and adorned by such brilliancy that 
the imagination is led astray and the mind bows to a supeiior intellect. But 
what honor can there be, what redeeming considerations can there be, in 
subjection to a political mob which shamelessly disavows all political princi- 
ples, whose only rallying cry is proscription, whose candidates for oliice are 
selected not because they are men of education, or talent, or sagacitv, or in- 
tegrity, but because they are destitute of all these? Among the rabble of 
the Boston delegation to the Massachusetts legislature we look in vain for one 
man of character, one man of intelligence, one man of experience, one man 
possessing anything like the proper litness for a representative of a great 
city. Did the city of Boston, did the commonwealth of Massachusetts, ever, 
of their own free will, elect such a legislature as that about to assemble 
thei^, or can we conceive of their doing so, except at the irresponsible dic- 
tation of this modern Council of Ten ? 

People of New Hampshire ! To each and all of you we say, " touch not 



/ 



160 

this accursed thing!" It will one day, should you do so, cause you to cover 
your heads with shame. Like a bubble of deleterious gas, it will explode, 
leaving behind it nothing but a pestilential odor. The finger of Providence 
has pointed out this country as the place where Catholicism may be purged 
of its abuses, and absorbed without harm into the system. Millions of poor 
and humble men in Europe are looking hitherward as the place where they 
and their children may enjoy those privileges of freedom denied them at 
home. But if you are content to kiss the rod that smites you, to place your 
republican freedom at the feet of a tyrannical oligarchy, if you can forget 
that there is scarcely a hill or a valley in New England but tells of some 
struggle of your fathers against religious and political intolerance, then is 
this such a country, then are you such a people, as will entirely suit the pur- 
poses of this obscure, shameless, and persecuting Council of Ten. 

To the same purport was the following article which appeared in the Riclut 
mond Examiner : 

Secret Societies and Republican Institutions — The Thirty Ty- 
rants OF Athens — The Council of Ten of Venice — The Supreme 
Know-Nothing Council of Thirteen of the United States. — The in- 
troduction of Secret Societies into the bosom of free communities, for the 
attainment of political ends, is the first symptom of the decay of free insti- 
tutions, and the chief instrument in their corruption and overthrow. We 
are not left to conjecture: we are not condemned to perform the whole ex- 
periment of Know-Nothingism in order to ascertain its eflects. We are not 
sentenced to submit to the manipulations of that hidden band of political 
jugglers in order to learn the results of their skill. The testimony of his- 
tory, the experience of other nations, furnish all necessary instructions on 
this point. It might almost be asserted that in almost every republic which 
the world has yet seen, the first sign and chief agency of the decay of free- 
dom was the prevalence of secret associations for the attainment of political 
purposes — chiefly for the acquisition of political offices. In Athens, in 
Rome, perhaps in Carthage, in Milan, Florence, and Venice, Secret Socie- 
ties first introduced disorder, dissension, disorganization, and civil war into 
the republic, and then inaugurated despotism, either by their own acts, or 
by the consequences of their acts. 

It must necessarily be so. As long as Republican institutions flourish, as 
long as they are acceptable to the people, the regular and constitutional 
modes of procedure, in the election to offices as well as in all other respects, 
are followed with reverence and acquiescence. It is only when those con- 
stitutional methods cease to be respected by a portion of the people that 
they are rejected, and the invention of secret machinery for election is ap- 
plied. This is at once an innovation at variance with free government, 
destructive of it, and adopted in a spirit of conscious or unconscious hostility 
to it. It is the substitution of new and unconstitutional modes of election, 
(or nomination, which is in spirit, if not always in effect, the same thing,) 
and of legislation for the republican practices previously in force. It is an 
attempt to ariest the legitimate development of free institutions by secret 
and underhand practices — and the moment that fidelity to a secret league or 
bond is regarded as paramount to the fidelity due to the Constitution and 
State, patriotism is at an end and the bonds of political organization is snapped 
like rotten flax. The Constitution ceases to be to each man the supreme 
authority, and the object of supreme attachment. His allegiance has been 
transferred to a secret league — the secrecy of whose deliberations, measures, 
and action, places them equally beyond responsibility and the reach of pub- 
lic sentiment. If the secret association is able to control the elections, the 



161 

secresy of their action disfranchises to all intents and purposes all who are 
not alliliatcd with them, and prescribes all political action and legislation 
without other restraint than the ineifectual oppcsilion which may be odbred 
in secret conclave. To maintain secrecy, and secure efficiency of procedure, 
the numbers who have the direct control in determining nominations, and in 
reo-ulatino- the policy to be pursued, must be limited. The tendency of either 
success or -defeat will be to restrict more and more the members of the di- 
recting council. 

Thus the ultimate effect is to substitute a hidden oligarchy, like the 
Council of Ten at Venice, for the regular executive authorities and the 
republican organization. If the secret association is not able to control the 
elections, it introduces factious oppositions, jealousies, unexplained and 
therefore irremediable dissensions, into the bosom of the community. And, 
after the first step of secret operation has been taken, the other steps of 
illegal practices, fraudulent misrepresentations, and criminal resistance, fol- 
lo\\°naturally and unsuspiciously, and arc taken before the members of the 
secret society are aware themselves of the tendency of their course. Thus 
secret political societies, commencing in the distrust and repudiation of con- 
stitutional authority and constitutional procedure, first disorganize the soci- 
ety in which they occur, undermine its free institutions, cashier its open, 
candid publicity of action, and finally eventuate in an oligarchy, which 
sometimes continues dominant, but more frequently transfers its power into 
the hands of a despot. 

This was the course of affairs at Athens, and in many other States of 
Greece, from the time of Pericles to the ascendancy of the Thirty Tyrants, 
directly put in power and sustained by the Hetcerife or secret political asso- 
ciations of Athens. This was the progress of events at Rome from Cincin- 
natus to Julius Caesar. And similar was the history of Venice before the In- 
quisition, of Milan before the Visconti, and of Florence before the ascendancy • 
of the second house of the Medici. In every instance secret societies — ori- 
o-inating among professed conservatives, or mainly sustained by them — pro- 
voking the establishment of other secret societies — opposing the regular 
constiUitional action of the ancient republican institutions — sapping these 
institutions — allying themselves with foreign enemies for the attainment of 
party ends and the conquest of the offices — abhorring the freedom and the 
Constitution of their country — sheltering or instigating crime — corrupting 
juries and coercing false verdicts — were the instruments in introducing at 
last the despotism of a few, after having ruined both the morals of the citi- 
zens and the pro^sperity of the state by intestine broUs and commotions. 

This is the clear and distinct testimony of the past. It is only necessary 
to read the detailed histories of Greece, Rome, and the Italian Republics, in 
order to see the course and tendency of Know-Nothingism — if not crushed 
like a young crocodile in the egg. The option presented to the American 
people — and now more particularly to the people of Virginia — is simply a 
choice between discord and anarchy under Know-Nothing impulses result- 
in"- in the abrogation of the Constitution and the establishment of an oligar- 
chy (more terrible in the exercise of its unlimited powers, because the Se- 
cret Council may be unknown) and tije maintenance of the Republican 
government, the free constitution, and the hberal principles conquered by 
the blood of patriots and martyrs. 

This is the only choice. If Know-Nothingism is sustained, farewell to- 
the liberties of America. The two things are absolutely and essentially in- 
compatible. They can no more co-exist than fire and water. The Know- 
Nothings among many other things which they do not know, do not know^ 
this. The heat, fanaticism, and mingled creduHty of partisans may prevent 
many from recognizing it, who would otherwise apprehend it at once. But 
11 



162. 

^. . . 

history, experience, philosophy, reason, assert that there is no other alterna- 
tive. If Know-Nothingism is perpetuated, Republicanism is at an end. If 
Republicanism is to be preserved, Know-Nothingism must be promptly and 
effectually crushed. The evidences which it has furnished in its brief ca- 
reer, are sufficient to illustrate and confirm these allegations, though they 
might not have been sufficient to suggest them without the testimony of his- 
tory. What constitutional provision — what Republican principle — what polit- 
ical or social interest — what obligation between man and man has been re- 
spected, when it interfered with the purposes of the secret rulers of this 
secret organization ? 

These remarks are made not in the spirit of party — not as a mere Demo- 
cratic utterance, but as the plain, indubitable warnings derived from the 
lessons of other free states, which have declined from the influence of such 
I a society as the Know-Nothings in their midst. 



In a second notice, the Examiner dwelt more upon the details of the antece- 
dents of the Winchester ticket. We append also two notices of the ticket from 
the Enquirer and Lynchburg Republican : 

SOxME OF THE ANTECEDENTS OF THE KANGAROO TICKET. 

The people were promised a ticket of fresh names by the Know Nothings. 
Tbey were to be allowed to vote for men who had never been contaminated in 
the slightest degree by party politics, or implicated by the remotest participa- 
tion in the struggles of the old organizations for place, plunder and patronage. 
But these brave promises have been forfeited in a manner as unblushing as 
amusing. Instead of a ticket as fresh and pure as butter just from the churn, 
■we have the most rancid platter of long packed away and accidentally raked up 
stuff that was ever offered in the political market. 

Mr. Flournoy is discovered to be one of the oldest and lamest Whig stagers 
in the State. In 1837 he sought to represent Halifax county in the House of 
Delegates; and failed of election by the small poll of 206 in more than 800 
votes cast. The next year he ran the same race again, and the result was still 
worse, the vote being: For Edmunds, (Dem.,) 5.5.^); for Taylor, (Dem.,) 
.533; for Simjms, (Whig,) 310; for Flournoy, (Whig,) 295; the spavined. 
Flournoy being the very hindmost nag. Set back by a hint of this emphatic 
description from the people and his immediate neighbors, he remained quiet for 
several years, until a split in the Democratic ranks of the Halifax Congressional 
district tempted him once more into the field, when he was accidentally elected 
by a beggarly majority of two or three votes — which made the first and last of 
his successes in his own bailiwick. This irresistible and invincible tried it a 
second time for Congress in 1949, and Dr. Averett beat him 9 votes. He 
tried it again in 1851, and the Doctor smashed him to the tune of 300 majority. 
From this statement it will be perceived that Flournoy's mission on this 
naughty earth, is to be beaten to a je?!ly by the great Democratic party, and he 
has not yet fulfilled his mission. Yet his present, is drolly advertised as his 
"first appearance on the stage." His want of strength at home has kept him 
in a state of pickled and rancid obscurity so long that the public has forgotten 
his existence altogether; and the burning zeal which the braggarts and trumpe- 
ters who do the boasting for the new party, represent that his nomination has 
elicited throughout the world and among the rest of mankind, when tested by 
these domestic facts, turns out to be a fox-fire commodity. 



163 

Mr. Patton is an old stager still more'' unlucky in liis destitution of the 
quality of freshness, than the Napoleon of minorites in Halifax. Of which of 
the " old and broken down parties," which are the so great abhorrence of Know 
Nothint^s, has he not been part and parcel in his tortuous partisan career? He 
has tried all parties, and carried off, as he successively left them, some of the 
mud and contamination of all. The colored chart of his political history is as 
variegated as Joseph's coat of many colors ; or as the chameleon phases of 
Know Nothin^ism in the several States of the Union — by virtue of which fa- 
cile adaptation to the prevailing local prejudice and passion, it sweeps the tho- 
routrh Abolition State of IMassachusetts with as overwhelming a majority as it 
boasts its ability to carry the staunch slave State of Virginia. The idea of ]Mr. 
Patton's being unsoiled by the dust, and unsophisticated in the wiles of party 
strife, is droll enough. Why, it was only since the abolition of the executive 
Council, and the old Constitution, that he ceased to hold office; and, as late as 
1850, in the great movement for reform, which even dashed its refreshing waves 
over starched and conservative Richmond, he ran and was beaten on the fogy 
ticket — under the flag that he still flaunts and swears by — of unequal rights 
and partial suffrage among the grown up white men of Virginia. 

But Beale is the very Koh-i-noor in this cabinet of fossil remains. Where 
will you find — what is a broken-down, worn-out politician, if Beale is not a 
cenuine specimen ? While in the Valley, he rode the Democratic party as the 
Old Man of the Sea rode Sinbad. He stuck to it like sponge to the ocean 
rock, and sucked it like the daughter of the horse leech. They choked him oif 
finally in the Valley, and- he sought new victims farther west. He forced him- 
self on t!ie party, in the Kanawha district, without a call or a Convention, at 
the instant lloBKRT A. THOMPSON started for the West, and gained his election 
at last by a promise to give way to men acceptable to the Democracy for the fu- 
ture. He went before the Democratic Sectional Convention, in 1852, for the 
Board of Public Works in ('ol. Armstrong's district, but was thrust out of it 
with as little ceremony as Fallstaff was turned hissing-hot into the Thames. 
Since that occurrence, he has been as discontented and restless as a bear with a 
sore head ; and, despairing of further favor among the Democracy, has been 
bountiful of blandishments, smirks and smiles for the Know Nothings. Thej 
have caught at the bait, and put Beale, the worn-out, cast-oft", and broken- 
down, number two on their ticket of /ms/t men. They are welcome to Beale. 

Such is the ticket that was to be free from all party taint, from flesh pot odor, 
and from loaf-and-fish contamination ? If such a ticket should sweep Virginia, 
•under Know Nothing auspices, then it may indeed be time to return to Mr. 
Patton's old doctrine of unequal rights und limited suffrage, and to 
make a man's poverty and want of education, as well as his alienagCj a disqual- 
ification for suffrage and for oflice. 

Those who are curious in regard to the metamorphoses of fossil politicians are 
likely to have their curiosity abundantly gratified with the relics of Mr. Pat- 
ton's early opinions of politics and politicians, that will be recovered from an- 
tiquity during this canvass. Here is a specimen of his satire in 1848 against 
the prospective Know Nothing party, its "Delphic oracles," and " Sybilline 
leaves." Here is his funeral oration over the great Whig party " quietly in- 
urned in the tomb of all the Capulets," and his requiem over their "defunct 
and buried principles." Here are the words in which he expressed his witty 
abhorrence of the trick of the Whig party, in 1848, in practicing the deception 
of the cat in the fable, and " hiding itself in the meal tub" of no partyisra. 
Here is his prophetic denunciation, in advance, of Know Nothingism, in boast- 
ing itself to be a great and prodigious " conservative" party, but " icithoiitj^o- 
lifical principles," and therein so unlike the " /<We conservative party iciih prin- 
ciples," of which himself was so bright and shining a light. Here is his biting 
earcasm upon the ^' blind man's huff" party, then rejoicing in the character -of 



164 

no partyhm and now relqpsed into the darker mystery of Know Notliingism. 
Here is Mr. Patton's pungent jeer of the Whig party for accepting in Gen- 
eral Taylor a candidate who " took especial pains to declare that he could not 
be the exponent of their doctrines/' — a fact iu politics that never had its coun- 
terpart until Mr. Patton, disclaiming Know Nothingism and all affiliation with 
it, coolly consents to be their passive nominee, and to be elected if they have 
votes enough to make him Attorney General. And more than all, here is Mr. 
Patton's eloquent, but, as it turns out, empty exhortation to the Democracy 
not to ahandon their j>i'i^^^'2^^es, seeing thai " one defeat, icliile standing hjj their 
jirinciplcs and never surrender Iikj their prino'phs, is icorth more than a thousand 
victories achieved hij the ahandoimcnt of tiiem all." 

Mr. PxiTTON said, in 1848, in addressing a Democratic meeting in Richmond j 

« We come to proclaim our unchanged and uncliangealle adherence to those 
great principles of Kepublican government, of practical expediency, and of 
constitutional construction, of which he (President Polk) has been for the last 
three years the exponent — principles which we deem essential to the perpetuity 
of Rcpnhlican fjovernrncnt, and to the union of the States. (Cheers.) We 
have no disputes to settle — no conflicting claims of rival candidates for the 
Presidency to decide — no Delphic oracles to expound — (laughter) and no Syhil- 
line leaves to interpret. (Laughter.) I presume we shall have no thunder 
(laughter) to shake our nerves, (laughter) and no flashes of lightning to be- 
wilder our senses. (Laughter.) There are no dark and portentous clouds low- 
erino' over us which require a thunder-storm to dispeJ. (Cheers.) The only 
clouds we have are light and floating vapors, far above our heads, which may 
make it doubtful with those that are not weatherwise whether the day is to be 
clear or cloudy, but which the first rays of a Democratic Sun will dissipate, 
and show that the skies are hriijht and brightening. (Cheers.)" 

The Whig Convention had " quietly laid the great embodiment of Whig 
principles on the shelf," and had " solemnly announced as their favorite candi- 
date a gentleman who, with the frank and honest plainness of a gallant soldier, 
takes especial pains to declare that he will not be their candidate [laughter] — 
that he will not be the exponent of their doctrines, [laughter] and that his life 
has been hitherto so much spent in the field that he has not had time to * con- 
sider or investigate great plitical questions,' nor has he attempted to do so. 
Notwithstanding this, they proclaim Gen. Taylor as their first choice. To this 
complexion the principles of the great Whig party have come at last ! [Laugh- 
ter.] Thus ends the great chapter of Whig principles, [laughter] quietly ' in- 
urned in the tomb of all the Capulets' by its own friends, and their embodiment 
quietly laid on the shelf ! [Laughter.] I think we may say of these defunct 
and buried principles — 

* Great Caesar dead and turned /rom clay, 
May stop a hole to keep the wind away.' 

"But, gentlemen, it becomes us more steadily to maintain our own ptrinciples. 
Since ^Esop's Pables, having been quoted by Gen. Taylor, are likely to become 
a political text-book, I think we may draw a lesson of instruction from that re- 
nowned writer on civil government. [Laughter.] We are told in a notorious 
fable of jEsop, of an animal more dangerous while hid in a meal tub than when 
running about with a bell around its neck, [Laughter.] Timeo Danaos et 
dona ferentes. I am afraid our political opponents, dead, though their present 
principles be, may rise up again under their present, or in some other Jorm. 
They may possibly assume the name of the great conservative party, as suggest- 
ed by their President. [Laughter.] I was, myself, once a member of a little 
conservative party, [laughter] and I have no objection to a little conservative 
party with principles, but object decidedly to a great big one without political 



165 

principles. [Laughter.] But, inasmuch as they may to indisposed to take 
either of these names, they may adopt the suggestion of another distinguished 
champion of the hite 'indomitable Whigs,' and take the cognomen of the 
" hlinil mans huff." Therefore, gentlemen, it is not the less necessary that we 
should maintain, proclaim and stand by our principles— that we should adopt 
t^e means necessary to concentrate public opinion upon a man available to .sus- 
tain our principles, and to take care not to abandon our principles in order to 
o-et an available man. We should not have a man who has formed no opinions, 
but one who has formed opinions, is ready to avow them, and has proclaimed 
them in his past actions, in the public councils. [Cheers.] To such a man let 
us give our support, fearless of defeat, but prepared for either fortune. If we 
are destined to triumph, it will then be our proud boast, that it is a triumph of 
principle— and, if destined to defeat, we shall still have the proud boast, and 
the consolation, too, that one defeat, while standing by our flao, and ne- 
ver SURRENDERING OUR PRINCIPLES, IS WOkTII MORE THAN A THOUSAND 
VICTORIES ACHIEVED BY THE ABANDONMENT OF THEM ALL.— [Long continued 

cheering.]" 

THE HYBRID TICKET. 

The Know Nothing nominations have provoked from the Democratic press 
just such a display of defiant opposition as we anticipated. The device of an 
amalgamation ticket, while it has offended the pride and repelled the sympathies 
of iutelligeQt and independent Whigs, has not conciliated the least favor with 
the Democratic party. The association of Beale and Patton with a malignant 
Whig was not only a crime in morals but an egregious blunder in policy. It is 
not only a violation of principle and a mockery of every idea of political honesty, 
but it is a refinement of artifice, which, instead of damaging the party against 
whom it is directed, will wound and embarrass the cause it is designed to pro- 
mote. What must be the feeling of every honest Whig to whom this hybrid 
ticket is presented ? Will he not reject it with an indignant protest against 
so shameless a barter of p)rinciples for spoils? He is not so smitten with a lust 
for plunder as to sacrifice the convictions of his judgment and the^ pure affections 
of his heart, to any expedient which hungry politicians may think essential to 
the acqnisition of power. There are Whigs in Virginia who have caught some- 
thing of the chivalrous character of Clay. There are Whigsin Virginia who 
will never betray a cause in a crisis of peril, nor confederate with an obnoxious 
party on a promise of a division of the spoils. These gentlemeri see much dis- 
grace but discover no advantage in the coalition with Know Nothingism. " But 
stay," whispers a Whig politician ; "it is true we claim no principle and avow 
no party purpose, but we play a game of profound policy. Observe a staunch 
Whig a't the head of the ticket, and a couple of fishy Democrats^ at the tail, 
riournoy will engross all the power and patronage of the State, while Beale and 
Patton, like the prodigal son who deserted his father's house, are feeding on 
husks and herding with the harlots of our party, without the dignity of respec- 
table association or the luxury of a liberal reward. As we deny them any po- 
litical power, so have we effectually robbed them of the influence of personal 
character, by bribing them to perform this venal service. They are the help- 
less instruments of our pleasure, and if they choose, have not the ability to op- 
pose any resistance to the execution of our grand scheme OF expelling the 
GoTHS AND Vandals, and restoring the ascendancy of Whig measures 
AND Whig policy." To this development the honest Whig will reply : " That 
he scorns to perpetrate a fraud upon the people ; that if his principles have not 
enough of wisdom to command the public confidence, he will not seek to impose 
them upon the State by the secret agency of a corrupt conspiracy; that he will 
not disgrace himself and bis cause, by the false pretences of a perfidious policy j 



166 

that be is resolved, at least, to save bis bonor if bis party must sustain defeat." 
This is the feeliog and this the resolution of the independent and incorruptible 
Whigs of Virginia. They will not degrade themselves by the support of the 
Know Nothing nominees. 

On the other baud, the Democracy feel the indignity of the proffered bride, 
and instead of being propitiated by the Democratic tail of the Know Nothing 
ticket, they are excited to greater energy and enthusiasm in support of theR- 
own candidates and cause. In every quarter of the State curses loud and deep 
are muttered against Ik-ale and Patton, and vows of vengeance on their despica- 
ble treachery. The Democratic papers of the State manifest a zeal and ability 
in their assaults on the mongrel ticket, which betoken the pervading discontent 
of the popular mind. We have distinguished many of their stirring articles for 
publication in this paper, but are compelled to suspend our purpose in conse- 
quence of the pressure on our columns. We can assure our friends that the 
Opposition will reap no advantage from the expedient of a hybrid ticket. — 
Richmond EiDjuircr. 

THE MERMAID TICKET. 

Since tbe publication of the Know Nothing ticket, we bave been vexing our 
curiosity to find some prototype to it in the physical, animal, or mineral king- 
dom. We bave found one after much agony of brain. It is tbe mermaid. 
This animal has a doubtful existence. So has the Know Nothing ticket — its 
paternity being a matter of speculation. The mermaid is a sea animal, repre- 
sented to have the head and body of a woman with the tail of a fish. This 
Know Nothing ticket has the head of a Whig, while its tail is certainly com- 
posed of fishy Democrats. Nor does tbe analogy cease here. The mermaid is 
associated with that public imposter and general circulator of impositions, 
Phincas T. Barnum. This mermaid ticket is presented to the world under the 
auspices of a set of politicians whose experiments upon popular curiosity and 
credulity bave been as numerous as those of Barnum. It is like the mermaid 
in another light. One of the amusements of this half woman and half fish is 
to attract persons to its embrace by singings of tbe sweetest melody, and when 
its fated admirers come within reach of its scaly tail, to coil it round them, and 
dive with them to the depths of the sea, and there feed upon the bodies of the 
deluded victims. So it is with this political mermaid ticket. It too sings 
songs of American melodj^, but woe to the deluded wretch who listens to their 
treacherous music. Once within their slimy embrace, it will sink with them 
into the slime of Ocean's bed, and their gorge at leisure upon their unfortunate 
victims. We might run out this and other analogies, but tbe present is suffi- 
cient for to-day. — Lynclihurg Repuhlican. 



The Enquirer, in a subsequent article, discussed Mr. Flournoy's antecedents, 
as follows : 

HISTORICAL RESEARCHES OF THE HON. THOMAS S. FLOURNOY. 

Silence is at length broken. Know Notbingism speaks through its avowed 
organ. Its recognized candidate " endorses, fully, the basis of principles of the 
American party," and adopts them as his own. Nay, more, be expounds and 
enforces them, and invokes in their behalf the " teachings of all history." We 
design for tbe present merely to explore the depths of his historical researches. 
Hereafter we may work still further the rich mine revealed in his letter of ac- 
ceptance. 



167 

After advocating an exorcise of Federal power for the purpose of chocking 
foreign immigration, and thus conceding that the Fcderul Government n)ay use 
its power to increase or diminish at pleasure the population of a State, he con- 
tinues iu this fashion : 

''Intimately connected with this question of foreign immigration, is the 
growth of the Roman Catholic Church in our country. Despotic, proscriptive 
and intolerant, its ascendancy, as all history teaches, has ever been destructive 
of freedom of opinion ; while I would uncompromisingly oppose any interfer- 
ence with the rights of its members as citizens by any legislative enactment, 
yet by a full and independent exercise of the right of suffrage and the appoint- 
ing power they should be excluded from the offices of the Government iu all its 
departments." 

Analyze this paragraph and we get the following result. All history teaches 
that the Roman Catholic religion has ever been destructive of freedom of opi- 
nion, and therefore, '' that its members should be excluded from the offices of 
the Government in all its departments." In other words, a duo regard for pub- 
lic safety requires the total exclusion of Roman Catholics from all participation 
in the Government of the country. 

Before proceeding to notice this most extraordinary dogma, we protest against 
a misconstruction of our design. We are not, and never can be, the apologists 
of the Roman Catholic religion. We are essentially Protestant, reared under 
Protestant influences and bound by the strongest ties of affection and reason to 
Protestantism. But we detest the rank injustice to Roman Catholics, daily and 
hourly perpetrated by the Know Nothing party, and now officially promulgated 
by its representative. 

History does not teach that free institutions are incompatible with the pre- 
dominance of Roman Catholicism, as the Hon. Thomas Stanhope Flournoy 
maintains. 

Indeed, the contrary is so notorious as to excite suspicion that history was 
not one " of the quiet pursuits of private life" from which he " was unwilling 
to have his attention withdrawn." We fear that his attention was directed 
more to the new Code and Mayo's Guide, than to the teachings of Hume and 
liullam. AVe shall, therefore, take leave to give him an elementary lesson iu 
history. 

Nothing is more distinctly taught by history than the inability of the Ro- 
mish Church to cope with free principles, supposing them, for argument sake, to 
be hostile. And that Roman Catholics themselves have waged the war in be- 
half of freedom against the head of their Church. 

To prove this, we shall select the history of a period beginning three hundred 
years before the advent of Protestantism, when the Romish Church was in the 
plenitude of its power, spiritual and temporal ; and we shall take the country 
whose history is best known to us. 

AVe maintain, in opposition to the historical theory of the ex-honorable can- 
didate, that nearly all, if not quite all, of the essential principles of our Repub- 
lican institutions originated among Catholics, and were developed by them. 
We take it that freedom of person, and security of property, stand foremost in 
the catalogue of these principles if they do not constitute their sum total. Ac- 
cording to Hallam, a Protestant and the most impartial of historians, these two 
principles were recognized and secured by Magna Charta, three centuries before 
the reformation. He says, that "the essential clauses of Magna Charta, are 
those which protect the personal liberty and property of all freemen by giving 
security from arbitrary imprisonment and arbitrary spoliation." (Hallam'a 
Middle Ages, page 3-12.) He then quotes from the Charter of Henry III. 
substantially the same with Magna Charter, this passage : " No freeman shall 
be taken or imprisoned, or be disseized of his freehold, or liberties, or free cus~ 



168 

toms, or "be outlawed, or exiled, or any otherwise destroyed ; nor will we pass 
upon him, nor send upon him, but by the lawful judgment of his peers, or by 
the law of the land." "It is obvious, (says Hallam,) that these words, inter- 
preted by any honest court of law, convey an ample security for the two main 
rights of civil society. From the era, therefore, of King John's Charter, it 
must hare been a clear principle of our constitution, that no man ci\n be de- 
tained in prison without a trial. Whether Courts of Justice framed the writ of 
habeas corpus in conformity to the spirit of this clause or found it already in 
their register, it became from that era the right of the subject to demand it." 
"That writ is the principal bulwark of English liberty." Thus it seems, ac- 
cording to this Protestant historian, that the principal bulwark of English lib- 
erty was erected by the hands of lloman Catholics. Other clauses of the 
Charter protected the subject from absolute spoliation and excessive fines, and 
"fourscore years afterwards (says Hallam) the grcnt princi'iile of parliamentary 
iao:atlo)i ivas explicitlij and ahsoluteli/ reeoynized." 

The principle which caused the American Ilevolution, and is justly regarded 
as the corner stone of our present institutions, was explicitly declared and ab- 
solutely recognized by Roman Catholics two centuries before Protestantism was 
born. » 

Nor was this passion for liberty, a passing flame, but a deep, unwavering, 
permanent attachment. Recurring again to Hallam, page 348, we find it stated 
that " the Great Charter was al"ways considered as a fundamental law. 13ut yet, 
it was supposed to acquire additional security by frequent confirmation." And 
what part did the Catholic Clergy act, with regard to it. The historian says 
"from the great difficulty of compelling the King (Henry III.) to observe the 
boundaries of law, the English Clergy, (Catholic of course,) to whom we are 
much indebted for their zeal in behalf of liberty during this reign, devised 
means of binding his conscience, and terrifying his imagination by religious 
sanctions. The solemn excommunication, accompanied with the most awful 
threats pronounced against the violators of Magna Charta, is well knoWn from 
our common histories." 

Not so. Mr. Flournoy never heard of it or dreamt of it, else he would 
not have maintained from the "teachings of history," that no Roman Catholic 
should be permitted to hold office. 

A cursory glance over the succeeding pages of the same historian, shows the 
progressive developement of free principles. The admission of the Commons 
to Parliament, the incorporation of Towns with exemptions from arbitrary con- 
trol ; the division of Parliament into two houses — the illegality of raising 
money without consent of Parliament — the necessity that the two houses should 
concur for any alterations in the law, and the right of the Commons to enquire 
into public abuses, and to impeach public counsellors; all of these principles 
were established upon a firm footing by the close of Edward III.'s reign, or 
about 150 years before the reformation. 

Hallam closes the history of the Plantagenets with this remarkable declara- 
tion, written as if to rebuke prophetically, the false and fanatical charges 
against the Catholics now in vogue : 

"It were a strange misrepresentation of history to assert that the constitution 
had attained anything like a perfect state in the 15th century; but I know not 
whether there are any essential privileges of our countrymen, any fundamental 
securities against arbitrary power, so far as they depend upon positive institu- 
tions, which may not be traced to the time when the house of Plantagenet 
filled the English throne." (page 450.) 

When it is remembered that the last of the Plantagenets fell on the field of 
battle, on the 22d day of August, 1485, more than forty years before the re- 
formation in England, it will be seen that Ilallam's statement is equivalent to a 



169 

declaration (hat all the essential privileges of Englishmen, and all their funda- 
mental securities against arbitrary power were established by llomau Catholics 
and secured by con.stitutional guarantees. 

The answer which wMll probably be made, strengthens our argument. It 
will be said that these institutions were founded in spite of the Pope and that 
Innocent formerly annnUcd Manna Oharta. Granted, but this only proves the 
utter inability of the Pope to suppress free prineiph^s atnong his undisputed 
subjects; and when, in the utmost plenitude of his power, spiritual and tempo- 
ral, lie was powerless against Catholics, would he be stronger against a mixed 
population like our own ? l^ut why recur to history for a demonstration of the 
impotency of the Romish Church against free principles ? Have we not seen it 
dethroned in the very seat of its power, and is it not now upheld by French 
bayonets? Could it suppress free institutions in the Kingdom of Sardinia, or 
Switzerland, or prevent the present revolution in Spain? How absurd to sup- 
pose that the people of the Uuited States are in danger from a power too feeble 
in its strongholds to effect the purposes ascribed to it. IIow absurd to fear in- 
juries from a decayed institution which it could not inflict in the height of ita 
power. How wicked to pretend such fear for the purpose of producing section- 
al hate and riding into power on a predominant faction ? 

History teaches that England when wholly Catholic, gave birth to and reared 
free government in spite of the Pope. Therefore, Virginia, containing 49 
Protestants to 1 Catholic, is in danger from the Papal power ! This is the 
premise and this the argument of Kuow-Nothingism. 



MR. FLOURNOY'S ACCEPTANCE. 

Mr. Flournoy signified his acceptance of the Winchester nomination in the 
following letter. This document derives greater significance from the fact, that 
it was the only expression of opinion in any form which Mr. F. vouchsafed ia 
the paper during the whole canvass : • 

[CORRESPONDENCE. ] 

"WiNcn ESTER, March 14th, 1855. 
To the Eon. ThoR. S. Flournoy : 

Dear Sir : — The undersigned, a committee appointed for the purpose, take 
pleasure in informing you of your unanimous nomination, by the Convention 
of the American Party of Virginia, which met on yesterday at this place, a3 
"the American candidate for the office of Governor of this State;" and request 
your acceptance of the nomination. 

Very respectfully, &c. 

ANDREW E. KENNEDY, ) 
GEORGE D. GRAY, f- Committee. 

JOSIAH DABBS, J 



Halifax C. H., March 22d, 1855. 

Messrs. Andrew E. Kenncdi/, George D. Gray and Josiah Dahhs : 

Gentlemen — I have just received your letter of the 14th, informing me of 
my nomination by the Convention at Winchester, for the office of Governor of 
this State, and requesting my acceptance. 



170 

It was well known to all who communicated with me upon the subject, that 
for reasons entirely personal to myself, I had no desire to occupy such a position. 
As far as it is above any merit which I possess, and as worthy as it is of the 
ambition of any man, I was unwilling to have my attention withdiawn from the 
quiet pursuits of private life, and earnestly hoped that the Convention would 
have selected some one more suitable in every respect than myself to represent 
the American party. But my entire confidence in and earnest desire for the 
success of the principles of that party, upon which, in my humble judgment, 
depend the protection of the rights of the States, and the preservation of the 
Union, induce me to accept the nomination. 

In doing so, it is proper that I shall express my opinions upon the subjects 
which most interest the people of the State. 

I am in favor of a general system of popular education. 

I am in favor of completing the leading lines of internal improvement, now 
under prosecution, with as much dispatch as the financial condition of the State 
will justify, keeping always in view the preservation of her faith and credit. 

I endorse fully the Basis of Principles of the American party, believing them 
to be the most conservative presented to the consideration of the country since 
the establishment of our independence. 

The rapid increase of Foreign immigration is well calculated to excite alarm, 
and the power of the Government, both State and Federal, should be exerted 
to check it. It seems almost impossible to doubt that the influx of between 
four and five hundred thousand Foreigners into our country annually, will ulti- 
mately be subversive of our Kepublican institutions. Washington, Jefi'erson, 
Madi.son and Jackson gave early warning to the country of the danger to be 
apprehended from foreign influence. The naturalization laws should either be 
repealed or so modified, and such restrictions imposed as to avert the evil. 

The South is especially and deeply interested in this question. This im- 
inen.se annual addition to our population settle in the non-slaveholding States 
and the extensive territories of the West and North-west, out of which Free 
States will, in consequence, be more speedily formed, increasing with fearful 
rapidity the balance of power against us. 

Intimately connected with this question of foreign immigration, is the growth 
of the Roman Catholic Church in our country. Despotic, proscriptive and in- 
tolerant, its ascendancy, as all history teaches, has ever been destructive of free- 
dom cf opinion, and while I would uncompromisingly oppose any interference 
with the rights of its members as citizens, by any legislative enactment, yet by 
a full and independent exercise of the right of suiTrage and the appointing 
power, they should be excluded from the offices of the Government in all its 
departments. 

It may be said that there are comparatively but few Foreigners and pLoman 
Catholics in Virginia. She is not acting for herself alone. She is a leading 
member of this great sisterhood of States, and her action will be felt for weal 
or woe, by them all. Her destiny is identified with theirs, and she cannot look 
with indifference to the fact, that the great valley of the Mississippi, watered by 
twenty thousand miles of navigable rivers, and the immense and fertile Territo- 
ries, stretching beyond to the Pacific, capable of sustaining a population of one 
hundred millions, are rapidly filling up with this class of people. 

I will advert particularly to one other principle of the American party — the 
'' non-intervention of the Federal and State government with the municipal 
affairs of each other." The strict observance of this principle will make the 
union of the States perpetual. 

I shall not have it in my power to meet the people of the State and discuss 
these questions with them face -to face. It is now but about sixty days to the 
election, and if I were to devote every day to the canvass, I should not be able 
to visit much more than a third of the counties. An additional, and with me 



ni 

au important reason, is, that I shall be fully occupied in preparation for, and at- 
tendance upon tlie Courts in which I practice, until the election shall have 
passed. 

If with these opinions, and this position, the people of Virginia shall elect 
me to the distinguished office of Governor of the Commonwealth, I will dis- 
charge its duties with fidelity, and what ability I possess. I will endeavor to ad- 
vance the prosperity, guard the honor, and protect the interests and institutions 
of Virginia, by all the power vested in me, and I shall do all that I can consis- 
tently with her interest and honor for the preservation of the Union. 

Very respectfully, your ob't serv't, 

THOS. S. FLOURNOY. 



The editor of the Examiner criticised, in the following searching and scathing 
manner, Mr. Flournoy's letter on its publication : 

THE STATESMANSHIP OF MR. FLOURNOY. 

We have expressed our respect for the personal character of Mr. Flouftoy. 
That he is a man of integrity, intelligence, talents, a genial temperament and 
an honorable reputation, we desire at all times to be understood as cheerfully 
conceding; and we trust that nothing we are about to say, or shall utter during 
the present canvass, (which promises to be the most acrimonious ever known in 
Virginia) shall be construed as, in the least degree, retracting or qualifying this 
concession. 

Entertaining these sentiments of personal esteem for Mr. Flournoy, we can- 
not but express our surprise at the production, printed in another column, pur- 
porting to be from his pen, and addressed to three persons understood to be cor- 
responding secretaries of the Know Nothing Convention of Winchester. 

It is a palpably just and a very lenient criticism of Mr. Flournoy's letter 
accepting the nomination of the Winchester Convention, to say that it is weak 
in tenor and shallow in statesmanship. Indeed, it would be beneath especial 
notice but for the position of its author. That single circumstance alone, en- 
titles it to the searching examination which we shall give it. It gives us pain 
to use this bluntness in regard to a letter emanating from one who aspires to be 
the Governor of Virginia. We had hoped, for the credit of the State, that at 
a time when the eyes of the whole Union are riveted anxiously upon Virginia, 
when the entire American people are eagerly scanning the men aspiring to fill 
the distinguished office in this Commonwealth which has been illustrated by 
Henry, Jefferson and Giles, and in a canvass that is national, not only in the 
intense and far-pervading interest it has excited, but in the great principles of 
representative government it involves, we should have had some other response, 
from a leader of one of the contending organizations, than a letter abounding 
in the shallowest partisan politics, and announcing sentiments which, if gravely 
propounded twelve months ago in Virginia, before fanaticism had taken partial 
possession of t^e public mind, would have branded him as an idiot, a maniac, or 
a monster. 

He Adojits the Low Do(jmas of the Know Kothwgs. 

Mr. Flournoy declines to discuss the momentous questions at issue in this can- 
vass, "face to face" with the people, on the miserable, hackneyed plea, that a 
load of 7im 2)>'ins practice presses upon his shoulders. What is this practice — 
what are the few fees he may earn by pursuing it, to the stern obligation he is 



172 

under as a republican citizen, an honest man, and a professing Christian, to 
justify to the people of Virginia the felonious blows and stealthy assaults by 
which his secret clubs and niidaight accomplices are attacking the vital princi- 
ples of religious freedom and representative government? Heralded as a Pres- 
byterian, as a member of a denomination illustrious for its services in the cause 
of religious toleration, he owes it to his own church — nay, he owes it to all 
Protestantdom to explain why he repudiates a principle which they claim as their 
own peculiar gift to freedom, and why he accepts, to the shame of his religion, 
from church burning Angel GABraELS, Ned Buntltnes and Bill Pooles, of 
the North, the barbarous doctrines of proscription and intolerance which he 
shamelessly avows in his letter. He ov^es this justification to the people of Vir- 
ginia : for when has a candidate for her most distinguished honor ever insulted 
them before by invoking the low passions of intolerance and bigotry to aid his 
partisan pretensions ? When did Washington, or Jefferson, or Randolph, or 
any honorable name that graces the annals of our State, ever descend to denounce 
in a campaign circular, even the Catholics, for the sake of securing public of- 
fice, and winning the suiFrages of the generous Virginia people? We know 
that midnight clubs are in the habit of lashing themselves into fury, and that 
partisan demagogues of the cross-roads and the campaign journals delight to 
bell(j;W and rant themselves into notoriety, over this newly vamped Catholic 
question ; but that a man of elevated character and liberal scholarship, esteemed 
fit to fill an exalted office of Virginia, should stoop to lay his tongue and drag- 
gle his reputation in such filthy mire, is a shame that we trusted would be 
spared to our State. 

He Assails the Freedom of Religion. 

Etc maintains that Roman Catholics "should be excluded from the ofiice of 
the government in all its departments," and promises fidelity and vigilance in 
this brave work. That any sect of Christians should be proscribed for their re- 
ligious faith, is a sentiment which wc thought had been scouted out of our 
country as long ago as the establishment of our free institutions, which even 
England is become ashamed of and restive under, and of which the only re» 
maining stronghold, home and sanctuary at the present day is God-forsaken 
Spain and her sister despotisms of Europe. The present is the first occasion, 
in Virginia, for a century, in which a person holding an honorable position in 
society, above the level of the Jack. Cabes and Z. Judsons of the mob, has 
stooped to appropriate it as a political hobby, and to claim it as a partisan shib- 
boleth. 

He Declares fur the Perpetual Agitation of a Bigoted Sentiment. 

Mr. Flournoy's mode of effecting this shameful proscription is as unstates- 
manlike as it is unmanly. He would accomplish his object by incessant dema- 
gogue agitation ; but would " uncompromisingly oppose" efiectuating it by 
the direct and honorable means of " legal enactment." What is worthy of 
being done at all, is worthy of being done well ; and it is sufficient to damn any 
scheme of public policy, that it is too vicious, unjust, and unrighteous to be 
carried into a law. And how pitiable and unmanly is the statesmanship which 
propounds a measure of reform, but skulks from the only bold, honorable and 
efficient means of carrying it into effect ! That be shrinks from carrying his 
scheme of politics out into practical legislation, proves that it is agitated for 
anything else but the public good, that it is agitated exclusively for the ends of 
demagogues. In the benignancy of his statesmanship he would sow the ele- 
ments of discord and strife broadcast over the community, and make it the 
leading effort of his diplomacy to keep the flames thus enkindled ever burning 



173 

and exploding. He would not execute the victims of his proscription by a 
single blow of the axe or the guillotine, but roast them leisurely upon the slow 
fires of the rack, that he might continue to gloat over their tortures ! Consurn- 
li->ate is that statesmamlup which studies to supply a perpetual incentive to 
strife, hatred and mob-violence between class and class, sect and sect, race and 
race, in the bosom of the same communty ! We know of no better definition 
of demagojiueism than it is aijitatlon for the mere purpose of fermentinn ill. 
hlood and strife between class and sects, as the means of elevating the aai'tators 
to ojice. It is a sort of politics that might be tolerated in irresponsible clubs 
convened in secret, and in vapid partizans of low degree; but that a man of 
education, aspiring to the control of public affairs, should have proposed it in a 
public letter over his own name, is an event that shocks the moral sentiment 
and patriotic composure of all conservative citizens. We are sorry that a man 
has been thought worthy of grave public responsibilities in Virginia whose 
moral obliquity is such that he plumes himself upon advocating the very plan 
of politics which he vaunts it as a virtue that he " uncompromisino-ly opposes 
making the subject of legal enactment," — because, of course, it is too intolerant 
despotic, prescriptive and bigoted to deserve place upon the statute book ! 

He Propounds an Abolition Scheme of Politics. 

Mr. Flournoy's positions on the subject of immigration are ridiculously 
weak, absurd, and untenable. I'orrowiug the idea of Governor Smith he 
says : 

''The South is especially and deeply interested in this question ; this immense 
and annual addition to our population settle in the non-slaveholding States and 
the extensive territories of the West and North-West, out of which Free 
States will, in consequence, be more speedily formed, increasing with fearful 
rapidity the balance of power against us." 

In a previous paragraph he "endorses fully" the " Basis of Principles of the 
American party," one of which runs thus : 

"No obstacle should be interposed to the immigration of all foreigners of 
honest and industrious habits ;" 

which language is coupled with a clause excepting " paupers and criminals" 
from the privilege. 

Excepting paupers and criminals, which men of all classes and parties in the 
Union would join him in excluding from our shores, Mr. Flournoy would let 
foreigners into the country ad libitum. What then is his position ? Conceding 
that immigration goes almost altogether to the North, and that little of it comes 
to the South, his masterly statesmanship proposes to agitate in Virginia a sub- 
ject peculiarly northern and domestic, and strictly within the scope of State and 
police regulation — a doctrine of abolition invention and utterly abhorrent to all 
Southern ideas of State sovereiguty. He would prosecute this mad policy un- 
der the pretext, and in the dog-iu-the-manger spirit, of checking a more "rapid 
increase of political power in the North" than in the South. Ills humiliatingly 
in conflict with the chivalrous temper of the South to resist a movement, rif^t 
and worthy of "full endorsement" iu itself, from the mean motive of jealousy; 
but such is Mr. Flour.noy's statesmanship and Virginian manliness ! 

But is Mr. Flournoy ignorant of the fact that so long as honest and indus- 
trious foreigners are let into the North ad libitum, which he approves, the mere 
denial to them of the right of suffrage and official position cannot prevent that 
augmentation of Northern representation in Congress, of which he complains? 
Is this Governor of Virginia, expectant, ignorant of the notorious constitutional 
fact that it is population and not suffrage which determines the ratio of rep- 



174 

resentation in Congress ? Has he not yet learned in tlio horn-book of consti- 
tutional law, that five slaves even, count as many as three whites in determining 
Southern representation in Congress; and that immigrants once landed at the 
North, without naturalization, count as much in augmenting Northern repre- 
sentation in Congress as if each could vote for every office in the country ? We 
all know that the Know Nothing party belie by their action every principle 
avowed in their Basis, and that plausible schedule, chiefly of truisms that no- 
body will dispute, is put out as a decoy for the shallow and unthinking ; but we 
really did not think that Mr. Flournoy would commit himself in black and 
white to a pretext so transparent and disreputable, as that a denial of office and 
suffrage to immigrants could swell the rapid increase of the Northern balance 
of power. The Basis principle which he " fully endorses " admits all honest 
and industrious immigrants, and itself permits to be accomplished the very evil 
of which he complains, whether the immigrant ever afterwards secures a vote 
and office or not. 

lie Borrows a Bad Argument from Governor Smith. 

But imitators and quacks are prone to get swamped in quagmires. Mr. 
Flournoy borrowed Governor Smith's idea without having the sagacity to 
perceive the necessity of borrowing also the limitation which that gentleman 
coupled with the stolen article. Governor Smith did not, like his imitator, 
" endorse fully " the Basis Principles of the new party, but only approved some 
of them. He goes a bow-shot beyond the decoy doctrine, and, so far from pro- 
testing that " no obstacle should be interposed to foreign immigration," &e., 
"deprecates immigration as a great calamity," declaring it to be '' our highest 
duty to arrest the importation of foreiijners." Poor Mr. Flournoy appro- 
priates Governor Smith's argument of unduly augmented Northern representa- 
tion in Congress, but stumbles and fractures his skin over the " no obstacle" 
clause in his own Baais Principles. 

He and Gov. Smith Loth Tumhle into an Abolition Heresy. 

It is an easy but unpleasant task, to show that Gov. Smith, in taking this 
position on the immigrant question, bids farewell to State Rights politics. It 
is monstrous for a Southern man to propound a doctrine requiring the Virginia 
people to interfere with a strictly domestic question of the North, upon the 
whining plea — of envy and jealousy, that the North is outstripping us in the 
inarch to empire. It is calling upon the South to violate a principle of politics 
which she has considered of vital importance to her safety, and /Aa/, from the 
meanest and most pusilanimous of all motives. With what indignation would 
we ourselves resist the like doctrine, if brought to bear by the North against 
our own physical development? What if Virginia, as is not unlikely, should 
herself take steps to import miners, artificers, manufacturers and laborers from 
overstocked Europe, for the development of her own latent wealth ; — and if the 
Abolitionists of the North, borrowing the policy of George III., should demand 
cf Congress to exclude this foreign immigratioo, on the Smith-Flournoy-Know 
Nothing Ground, that it would unduly augment Southern representation in 
Congress? Would Virginia tamely submit to the insolent demand and gratui- 
tous insult? H»w has she not resented the conduct of the Abolitionists, bot- 
tomed on the similar plea of checking the extension of slave power, in impos- 
ing the Missouri Compromise upon us, in urging the Wilraot Proviso almost to 
the disruption of the Union, in resisting the purchase of Florida and Louisiana, 
the annexation of Texas, and the conquest of Mexico, and in now attempting to 
thwart in advance the honorable purchase and acquisition of Cuba ? 



175 

He Borroics a Mean Sentiment from the AhvUtionists. 

Tbe strength of the Snurthcrn cause has heretofore consisted much in the 
meanness of the motive with which our progress has been resisted by the Aboli- 
tionists. Let us not permit Delilah to shear us of our strength. Let us not 
borrow the meanness, the politics and the policy of Abolitionism, by shameless- 
ly avowing our jealousy of Northern progress and prosperity, and by intcrferin"' 
with their domestic concerns, professedly but to cripple them, and not to bene- 
fit ourselves. Foreign immigration is a subject strictly of State economy, and 
no Northern State will or Southern State should consent to surrender the su- 
preme coutrol of it. When Massachusetts, through Congress, shall dictate to 
V-'irgiuia to what classes of people her ports shall be opened, wliat races of men 
shall vote and shall hold office, what shade of opinions shall disqualify for enjoy- 
ing the rights, privileges, and franchises of citizenship, Virginia will have sur- 
rendered to the last demand of abolitionism, and been despoiled of the last attri- 
bute of State sovereignty. 

He Invites the North to Stop Prospering, in Order to Ap^pcase the Jealousy 

of Vinjinia. 

But, instead of such a rotten doctrine, does our model State Rights Gover- 
nor, expectant, mean to maintain that agitating this question here in yir'^inia 
is calculated to bring about the exclusion of immigrants from the North by 
voluntary legislation on the part of Norlhcru States ? If so, in what a con- 
temptible attitude does the proposition stand ? Ho raises a huge clamor in 
Virginia about the rapid increase of political power in the North from immigra- 
tion, for the purpose of inducing those people themsclces to destroy the main 
agent of their own growth and progress ! He agitates here to induce them to 
cease to grow and prosper, in order to gratify Mr. Flournoy's puerile states- 
manship, and to sooth Virginia's dog-in-the-manger spii'it. Of all the absurd 
and stupid propositions we ever heard, it is this of Mr. Fluornoy, bon-owed 
from Governor Smith, that by agitating and raising a hello — hello here in 
Virginia about the great augmentation of northern power from immigration, 
we shall induce them to lay a suicidal axe at the roots of their own amazing 
prosperity ! 

And yet he turns vp at last a State Bights 3fan ! 

After announcing these rank and fanatical doctrines of Federal interference 
and inter-State interference, it is a mockery of State-Rights politics, and an in- 
sult to popular intelligence — only equaled by the late similar profession of 
Wilson of Massachusetts — for Mr. Flournoy to declare : 

" I will advert particularly to one other principle of the American party — 
the 'non-intervention of the Federal and State government with the municipal 
affivirs of each other.' The strict observance of this principle will make the 
union of the States perpetual." 

The force of impertinence could no further go ! 

He Desires Virginia to Scour the Great West on a Tour of Proscription. 

Mr. Flournoy takes still further pains to proclaim this rotten Abolition 
doctrine of interference in the domestic affairs of other States. The following- 
ambitious, sophomeric sentences have a prominent place in his remarkable let- 
ter : 

" It may be said that there are comparatively but few foreigners and Roman 
Catholics in Virginia. She is not acting for herself alone. She is a leading 



176 

member of this great sisterhood of States, and her action will be felt for weal 
or woe, bj them all. Her destiny is identified with theirs, and she cannot look 
with indifference to the fact, that the great valley of the Mississippi, watered by 
twenty thousand miles of navigable rivers, and the immense and fertile Territo- 
ries, stretching beyond to the Pacific, capable of sustaining a population of one 
hundred millions, are rapidly filling up with this class of people." 

So, then, our chivalrous Commonwealth, under the guidance of his resplen- 
dent statesmanship, is to assume the honorable office of common scold and in- 
termeddler, and to go forth into the West and North-west, berating Catholics 
and shoo-shooing foreigners — like depredating poultry — out of their gardens and 
potato patches ! A fit Governor for such a Commonwealth, would be amiable 
Mr. Flournoy — the statesman. 

Virginia is to go out into the West and North-west, a jealous, scolding Juno, 
attended by her Know Nothing Argus of an hundred eyes, threading their 
twenty thousand miles of navigable rivers, expelling " foreigners" from a land 
they may have held since De Soto and La Salle, and " excluding Catholics from 
the offices of government in all its departments." We pity the spirit of narrow 
jealousy and intolerance which dictates such a policy as much as the ignorance 
it betrays. Mr Flournoy will be surprised to learn that there is scarcely a 
square inch of the countries here mentioned in which the Catholic citizen is 
not protected and guaranteed in all the rights, immunities and privileges, poli- 
tical and religious, of the most favored citizens of the United States, by express 
compacts, sacred, inviolable, irrepealable and perpetual. 

He is taiKjlit a Lesson of Some Importance to a Statesman from the Archives of 

the Country. 

We shall first apprise our Governor expectant of the existence of a clause in 
the celebrated ordinance of 1787, " for the government of the territory of the 
United States north-west of the Ohio river" in the nature of a perpetual com- 
pact, framed by some of the best men and purest patriots with whom God ever 
blessed the earth. The first — frat article of that venerable statute runs thus : 

" Art. I. No person, demeaning himself in a peaceable and orderly manner, 
shall EVER be molested on account of his mode of worship or religious senti- 
ments, in the said territory." 

We trust that no demagogue will interpose here, the shallow quibble, that 
to insult a citizen, with the declaration that his religious sentiments render him 
an unsafe depositary of official reponsibility, is not molesluKj him on account of 
his religion. 

Again, that vast territory, acquired by the Louisiana purchase, stretching 
from the Pacific to the Mississippi, embracing Oregon, Texas Missouri and all 
the intermediate domain, which was ceded by France, and was first settled, as 
was the northwest country just mentioned, by Catholics, is subject to the fol- 
lowing solemn stipulation, being the third article in the Louisiana Treaty of the 
30th April 1803 : 

"Art. 3. The inhabitants of ceded territory shall be incorporated in tho 
Union of the United States, and admitted as soon as possible, according to the 
principles of the Federal Constitution, to the enjoyment of ALL the rights, 
advantages and immunities of citizens of the United States ; and, in the mean- 
time, they shall be mauitaincd and protected in the free enjoyment of their 
liberty, property, and the religion which they profess." 

Instead of maintaining and protecting them, according to the spirit of this 
solemn compact, in this religion, Mr. Flournoy proposes, on account of it, 



177 

to proscribe them from office and degrade them from the rank of sovereign 
citizens. 

Proceeding farther in this interesting historical enquiry, wo find another por- 
tion of the Union, watered in part by tlie ^Mississippi, consecrated perpetually 
to religious toleration. The Treaty of Feb. 22, 1819, with Spain, under • 
which we acquire Florida and a large adjacent territory, contains these two 
articles : 

" Art. 5. The inhabitants of the ceded territories shall be secured in the free 
exercise of their religion, without ANY restriction ; and all those who may de- 
sire to remove to the Spanish dominions shall be permitted to gell or export their 
effects at any time whatever, without being subject, in either case, to duties."- 

" Art. G. The inhabitants of the territories which His Catholic Majesty cedes 
to the United States, by this Treaty, shall be incorporated in the Union of the 
United States, as soon as may be consistent with the principles of the Federal 
Constitution, and admitted to the enjoyment of ALL the priviligts, riyhta, and 
immunities oi the CITIZENS of the Unit^id States." 

And coming still further down, even to our own time, we find that our vast 
acquisition from Mexico, an empire, itself, iu the magnitude of its area, its 
population and wealth, to be indelibly stamped with an holy canon of religious 
toleration. In the Treaty of May 30, 1848, with the Mexican Republic, under 
which, auriferous California became a part of our Union, occurs the followino- 
golden provision : 

" Art. 9. Mexicans who, in the territories aforesaid, shall not preserve the 
character of citizens*of the Mexican Republic [but shall elect under the pre- 
ceding clause to be citizens of the United States,] * * * shall be incorporated 
into tbe Union of the United States, and be admitted at the proper time (to be 
judged of by the Congress of the United States) to the enjoyment of all the 
rights of citizens.of the United States ; according to the principles of the Con- 
stitution ; and, in the meantime, shall be maintained and protected in the free 
enjoyment of their liberty and property, and secured in the free exercise 
oj t/icir religion without restriction." 

As reference is repeatedly made in these documents to the rights, privilejcs 
and immunities, of the citizens of the United States, as guaranteed by the Con- 
stitution thereof, it is a fitting conclusion to such solemn stipulations to support 
them by the provisions on this subject of that palladium of liberty and compact 
of fraternal Union between the States, The sixth article of that instrument 
declares — 

" Art. VI. No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to ani/ 
office of public trust under this government." 

And the very first article among the amendments which were added to the in- 
strument, out of the abundant caution and jealousy of our fathers, which had 
special reference to such intolerant movements as tliat of the latter day Know 
Nothings, places religious freedom first in its enumeration of the inviolable 
franchises of a free people : 

" Art. I. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, 
or the FREE EXERCISE THEREOF J Or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the 
press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the gov- 
ernment for a redress of grievances." ' 

Thus it seems that every foot of territory in this broad and glorious confede- 
racy is consecrated by the most solemn and holy compacts to the liberty of 
CONSCIENCE. Thus it is apparent that Mr. Flournoy's mushroom part of 
religious- intolerance, though boasting its nationality, has not a spot of, the 
consecrated soil of the American Union on which to plant its flag-staff. 
12 



178 

Mr. Flournoy will now perceive, that it would have been the more prudent 
part for him to have pursued the policy of Mr. Patton, and, if accepting the dis- 
reputable nomination at all, to have held his silence in regard to the principles 
of proscription and tyranny that are coupled with it, upon which the fathers of 
his country so solemnly pronounced their anathema maranatha. Even if Mr. 
Flournoy should have deceived himself into a declaration that he did not de- 
sire this nomination for the ofSce for which he is named, can any one else be- 
lieve that so intelligent a person as himself could be sincere in such a profes- 
sion, while consenting, for the sake of securing the position, to endorse the in- 
famous and damnable doctrines to which he has now set his name, and which 
will stigmatize that honorable name long after his body shall have returned to 
the dust from which it came ? 

He Goes to Sea on a Frail Raft of Rotten Logs. 

Mr. Flournoy borrows his principles of State policy from Mr. Wise, making 
up no issue on State questions, and standing exclusively, in this canvass, on the 
Know Nothing principles of 

Religious Intolerance^ 
Unequal Rights, 
Secret Politics. 



MB. PATTON'S SPEECH AT RICHMOND, A(5CEPTINa THE 

NOMINATION. 

This oration is remarkable as the only one delivered by any of the Win- 
chester candidates during the progress of the canvass, if we except one or 
two other speeches of Mr. Patton, delivered on the very eve of the elec- 
tion. It therefore merits a conspicuous place in this compilation, and we 
lay it before our readers in extenso, following it up by a very searching re- 
view of it from the Richmond Examiner. 

Fellow-citizens — fellow-citizens of the American party and of all parties: 
I regret that, upon this first occasion of the assembling of the American 
party, and of the great body who are sympathizing with the American party, 
that it is my lot to be the only one of the nominees of the Winchester Con- 
vention present to receive your greetings on this occasion. I should have 
been much better pleased, and especially gratified, if the distinguished 
leader, who has been chosen as your political standard-bearer in the present 
canvass, had been present to address you ; a gentleman so much more able 
to address you than I am, so as to do justice tp your views, and so much 
better qualified to gratify the expectations of this large and crowded assem- 
bly, by an address worthy of the meeting, and worthy of the great subject. 

I came here, gentlemen, rather for the purpose of vindicating myself for 
assuming the position which I have assumed, and of vindicating you for hav- 
ing placed me in that position. My nomination by the Winchester Conven- 
tion, as a candidate for the suffrages of the people of Virginia, was as unex- 
pected as it was unsought by me, withdrawn as 1 had been for several years^ 
— for two or three years at least — from any active participation in the po- 
litical controversies of the country. Absorbed in the laborious, overwhelm- 
ing and almnst crushing duties of an arduous profession, I had paid very little 
attention to the progress of political events. I knew scarcely anything of 



179 

the issues which were about to ari.se, and which were likely to guide the 
people in the coming election. In that position I sought no office, and ex- 
pected none from any party, or a nomination from any party. I held out no 
inducements to those who, in behalf of this new American party, called upon 
me for the purpose of ascertaining whether I would accept this office of at- 
torney-general. I sincerely and most frankly discouraged the idea, and told 
them very frankly that I had not even read the Basis Principles wliich ttiey 
'had put forth as containing the objects for which tliis organization was 
formed, and which they were endeavoring to accomplish. I was told that 
this great organization desired, or at least a portion of the members of the 
Convention at Winchester, and probably the whole body, would de.-ire to 
confer tliis nomination on me, if I was willing to accept the office, without 
any regard to my political opinion or my political course ; that it was an of- 
fice wholly disconnected with political controversy, in reference to the dis- 
charge of the peculiar duties which devolved upon it ; that it was an office 
which had no patronage connected with it, and that, estimating very highly 
(much more highly than I had vanity to aspire to) my qualifications and fit- 
ness for the ofhce, they desired to confer it upon me, in reference to their 
estimate of my qualifications and fitness for it, without reference at all to any 
political object. I told them that if, under these circumstances, as it was an 
office in the line of my profession — an office which, although I had no par- 
ticular desire to obtain, it would yet not be unacceptable to me — if the Con- 
vention chose to confer upon me the nomination, I would accept it, assuring 
them at the same time that it would be incompatible with my business to en- 
gage in the political canvass in the way of discussion, and that, in my esti- 
mate, it was not desirable or proper that a candidate for an office of that sort 
should be mixed up in the angry political strife of parties. I most sincerely 
desired to occupy that position absolutely and entirely. It has not seemed 
good to the leaders and mouth-pieces of the party on the other side that I 
shall be permitted to occupy that position. I have been assailed with a 
fierceness of denunciation, and with a virulence of invective, and coarseness 
and illiberality of abuse, that has never been surpassed, if indeed it has ever 
been equaled. My motives traduced — eagerness for office imputed to me 
— ambitious aspirations — suffering humiliation in consenting to take an infe- 
rior office with a tide-waiter's salary, to serve under another leader with the 
high and important and splendid office of governor of Virginia, with a vast 
munificent pecuniary compensation. 

You have seen what eagerness I displayed to get the nomination of attor- 
ney-general. And now let me bring to the notice of this vast assembly, and 
to those who have been disposed to impute to me ambitious motives and 
eagerness for high office, one or two papers, which is all the answer I mean 
to give to those charges. 

I received, on the evening of the 13th March, froiTi Winchester, the fol- 
lowing telegraphic dispatch from a friend of mine, who was a member of the 
body : 

"Will you accept the nomination for governor? Reply immediately to 
this." 

I immediately sent the following by telegraph: 

"I would not accept the office of governor if every man in Virginia were 
to vote for me." 

By an ingenious perversity of accusation, it might still be said that I was 
like Caesar, rejecting the crown because I knew I could not get it. 

On the same evening, not very long after I had received the telegraphic 
dispatch which I have just read, I received this note from a gentleman in' 
Richmond : 



180 

"I have just received a dispatch by telegraph that you were nominated 
for governor, and requested to communicate it directl3\" 

As soon as I received this note, instantly, for the purpose of preventing 
any inconvenience to the Winchester Convention, such as would result from 
their making a nomination which would not be accepted, probably causing 
them to assemble again there or somewhere else to make another nomina- 
tion, I sent the following reply : 

" I regret the information your note contains. Several times during the 
last fifteen years I have declined being a candidate for governor when my 
friends thought I could be elected. I will not accept the office of governor 
under any circumstances, and though every man in the state were to vote 
for me. Excuse the apparent peremptoriness of this note." 

These are my aspirations for the office of governor, and you can now well 
form a notion how great was my mortificaiion at being passed over for this 
high office and offered the humble office of attorney-general. It is proper to 
state that the information that I was nominated for governor was a mistake, 
which of course I did not know until the following day. There was, as I 
understand, no such nomination, and the distinguished gentleman who has 
been nominated, and is so worthy to receive the suffrages of the American 
party, wai^ the decided choice of the Convention at all times. I do not know 
that th^re was a single man who was favorable to my nomination, except the 
particular gentleman who sent me the dispatch. 

Besides all that, it is now said that I am animated by aspirations for the 
Senate. I say here and now, as I have said repeatedly in the course of the 
last fifteen years, when my friends desired to put me in nomination for that 
office, as I said about the office of governor, I would not have the office of 
senator if every man in the Legislature of Virginia voted for me. 

I was then nominated for this office under the circumstances to which I 
have referred, by a large, respectable, intelligent and patriotic body of men, 
as much so to the extent that I have information in regard to them, as any 
body of men in any quarter, any state, or anywhere else in the world — a 
body of men representing, as I understand now, (for I Know-Nothing about 
the supposed elective strength of the American party,) lift}' or sixty thou- 
sand of the free citizens of this commonwealth. I have repeatedly said, in 
talking of this organization, without knowing anything at all of its objects or 
purposes, but having heard merely the rapid way in which it advances in 
the hearts and affections of the people elsewhere, that its objects must be 
patriotic. Were they otherwise, I could not believe that it could have en- 
listed so effectually the aid and support of the people of Virginia. It has 
surpassed the most extravagant idea that I could form of its progress in this 
state, my opinion having been that the sparseness of the population and the 
difficulty of^ communication between our people, would form almost an insur- 
mountable barrier to its extension. I had not the least idea of hope (if I may 
use that word) that when my nomination was made upon this ticket, there 
was a reasonable probability that the ticket would prevail. Now, I under- 
stand that the body of men who nominated me represented 50,000 persons 
at least in the commonwealth of Virginia, who have become united to the 
order, and among them some fifteen or twenty thousand Democrats. I 
received the nomination, then, of this body of gentlemen representing this 
vast portion of the people of Virginia, composed of all parties, and I could 
not feel m3'^self altogether at liberty to refuse to permit such a bod}' of gen- 
tlemen of all parties, irrespective of the political basis they might have in 
this movement, to present my name to the people of Virginia as a candidate 
for an office wholly disconnected with political parties or strife, and utterly 
void of all political patronage. And yet that act, the act of permitting my 
name to be presented to the people of Virginia, has been denounced as an 



181 

act of treachery to party and a violation of party obligations. I never 
entered into any party oblig-ations which would prevent me from allowing a 
majorilv of the people of Virginia to elect me to any ofHce which I was wil-' 
ling to take, no matter who may have made the nomination, or when or where 
they may be denounced. I have read the Constitution of Virginia several 
times, and I find there that the office of attorney-general is to be filled by 
the votes of the people of Virginia, and not by the Democratic Convention. 
He little knows my antecedents who does not know that I have never per- 
mitted myself to be governed or controlled by the dictates of a party, in re- 
gard to party nominations or part}' measures, anywhere or on any occasion. 
It i>' said I have received rewards of party, and have rendered very little 
service for them. What party reward did I ever receive? I am charged 
with ingratitude to the Democratic party. I was never elected to but one 
oflice, and that office, like this of attorney-general, not political — I mean the 
office of councillor of state — and I was elected to that office by a fraction of 
the Democratic party, with the united vote of the Whig party, beating the 
caucus nominee of the party. [Mr. P. did not refer to his service in Con- 
gress. To prevent misapprehension, it is proper to say that he was never 
elected to Congress by a party vote. He was elected by the people four 
terms — three terms without opposition — once against the opposition of a 
most popular, distinguished and thorough-going party man of the Democratic 
party ; and was, at all times, supported in the independent course he pursued 
in Congress, (independent of party, he means,) by the great body of both 
parties.] "And I was elected and re-elected to that office five times, every 
time, except one, by almost the unanimous vote of both parties, without a 
nomination even against me. On one occasion there was a nomination of a 
Democratic gentleman against me: a very ardent, consistent and thorough 
supporter of Democratic principles, who got "twenty-nine votes," and I all 
the balance. At these elections the Whig party were in the majority twice. 
I do not mean at all to say anything whatsoever to detract from the liberality, 
from the friendly feeling, from the liberal support that I received, from the 
liberal members of the Democratic party, as well as the Whig party, during 
those elections. But I never was elected by a party vote — never in m}^ life. 
I never was the favorite of the ultra men of any party assembly, because I 
did not recognize the despotism of pasty obligations, and because I always 
spurned their denunciations, whenever they were directed against me, for a 
preference of what my judgment approved as demanded b^' the true interest 
of the country. 

I have changed my party position, therefore. During the eight years of 
my service in Congress — during a portion of the time when Gen. Andrew 
Jackson was in the zenith of his power, and when to oppose him was like 
bearding the lion in his den — it can be seen, by reference to the journals of 
that lime, that I voted indifferently, as I thought, with the one party as the 
other: and it was because of this that the great, aud illustrious, and patriotic 
man, Henry Clay, who was always my warm friend, (and deeply did I re- 
gret very frequently that I could not consistently, with the opinions and prin- 
ciples which I entertained, support him for the presidency,) in the most 
friendly spirit and the facetiousness of his genial nature, said to me one day, 
" How are you to-day, Mr. Patton ?" and that joke, which I told so much to 
the amusement of my friends in private ten years ago, was told with very 
amusing elTect by John Hampden Pleasants in the Whig, on the day after I 
made the great somerset from the Whig party il^to the Democratic ranks, when 
I made a speech at the Exchange in 1844. And this joke, which was so 
good-humoredly published ten years ago, our Democratic friends seem to 
have taken hold of for the first time. They seem to have brought it up with 
a gusto, as if they never had heard of it. They must be very much in want 



182 

of something to amuse them, when they had to revive my old, stale and 
thread-bare jokes for the purpose of creating a little merriment. 

Gentlemen, this habit of resistance to party dictation exposed me during 
all my political life to the severe criticism of the press; and they have also 
brought along with them something which, perhaps, I ought to take as a full 
equivalent — the good natured, extravagant and equally unmerited praise of 
the party press. 

I have thus received alternately the applause of ]\Ir. Thomas Ritchie and 
that again of John Hampden Pleasants; and have received alternately their 
denunciation, too — denunciations from whom were calculated to carry some 
terror with them. I have heard the thunder of Democratic denunciations 
rolling over my head, threatening to exterminate me, when Jupiter Tonans, 
the Olympian Jove of Democracy, Thomas Ritchie, wielded the thunder- 
bolt. I have had the lightning of Whig denunciation to flash in my eyes 
when it was struck forth by the electric genius of John Hampden Pleasants. 
I was assailed violently by both, but it gave me great pleasure to see that af- 
ter the storm of prejudice and passion and political strife had passed away, it 
was my good fortune to enjoy, in a very high degree, the respect and confi- 
dence and friendship of both these gentlemen, which was cordially recipro- 
cated by myself. And now, when I have survived " heaven's artillery," do 
you think 1 am going to be killed, or frightened, or hurt, by firing crackers or 
sky-rockets, and least of all by pop-guns loaded with sliced potatoes, and 
very soft and small potatoes at that. 

It has been said that curses loud. and deep from the Democratic party are 
poured forth against me — I suppose melo-dramafic curses put forth for stage 
effect. But if there be any gentleman of the Democratic party, whose re- 
spect is worth anything, that has lost his own self-respect so far as to deal in 
curses against me, let me say to him that he had better remember the East- 
ern apothegm, that " curses, like chickens, go home to roost." As for my- 
self, I regard the curses of an angry partizan just as much as I do the raving 
of a maniac, or the howling of a hungry hyena. "They pass by me as the 
idle wind, which I respect not." And there is a consolation accompanying 
all this denunciation. If I am to be considered, (and I don't care a pinch of 
snufF whether I am to be so considered or not,) as driven out of the Demo- 
cratic party, (it certainly required no very strenuous exertion to accomplish 
that end,) I have the comfort of knowing that I enjoy in this calamity the com- 
pany of 20,000 (as I am told) of that old and respectable party, as steadfast, 
true and conscientious as any other equal number who still adhere to it. 

And now, gentlemen, I ought, perhaps, after saying this much about politi- 
cal intolerance, say what is perfectly just perhaps to all parties, and certainly 
to the Democratic party, that whatever other sins they might have been 
guilty of, they do not bear malice. Let any politician, no matter how repro- 
bate he may have been in his opinion — no matter what his political offences 
may have been — come to the High Priest of the Democratic party, and say, 
"Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean, wash me and I will be whiter 
than snow^," he will be sure to receive the merciful response, "Though thy 
sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow ; though they be red like crim- 
son, they shall be as wool." For verily, (at this time particularly,) there is 
more joy in the kingdom of Democracy, or rather, perhaps, I should say in 
the popedom of Democracy, for they seem to launch their fulminations in the 
same spirit and tone as if they conceived themselves, like his holiness, the 
Pope and vicegerent of God, whose decrees and bulls of excommunication 
proclaimed eternal damnation — for verily "there is more joy over one sinner 
that repenteth, than over ninety and nine just men that need no repent- 
ance." And if there shall be here and there occasionally an acquisition of 



183 

some secediniT Kiiow-N'othin<T, or obdurate Whig that comes to be purged 
with hyssop, they are thrown in absolute ecstacy and paroxysms of joy. 

Well, gentlemen, there is perhaps something too much of this, f have 
given this ijiatter connected with m3'-self more consideration than it deserved. 
I desired, gentlemen, to be saved the necessity of having to say anything ia 
respect to this nomination for attorney-general, or in respect to any matter 
connected with this canvass. I certainly have no design to say at any time, 
here or anywhere else, anything in disparagement of the claims of tlie dis- 
tinguished gentleman who has been nominated by the Staunton Convention 
for the oflicc of attorney-general, or anything, in the slightest degree, to de- 
rogate from the fidelity with which he W'ill discharge his duties, if a majority 
of the people of Virginia prefer his filling that othce ; and still more, em- 
phatically, I have nothing to say and mean to say nothing intended or calcu- 
lated to induce any man to vote for me, or to prevent any man from voting 
against me, for that office, if he prefers my competitor to fill it. 

1 said to you, gentlemen, that when I was nominated for this office I had 
seen none of the discussions which had grown up in Virginia, or anywhere 
else, in regard to this American party. I have been so much absorbed witli 
my own business, that I do not think I have read a governor's message 
for several years, nor a presidents message; and the time when I read a 
speech in Congress, is a period which runs back to a time that my memory 
"runneth not to the contrary." I have, however, read somewhat carefully, 
at various times since mj- nomination, the principles and basis of the Know- 
Nothing or American party, and I have no hesitation in saying that with one 
or two exceptions in regard to the mode of action of the party, and the extent 
to which they are proposing to go, as a rule for themselves in their organiza- 
tion, the principles and basis of that party meet my entire approbation. I 
see nothing inconsistent with those unchanged and unchangeable principles 
of state rights Virginia republicanism w^hich I have always cherished and 
still cling to. 

I have looked a little into the grounds upon which this organization and its 
principles have been assailed in the canvass, and have been amazed at the 
strange misconception and the singular perverseness of argument by which 
it is sought to be maintained, that the principles of this organization are vio- 
lative of the Constitution and of the Bill of Rights, and that they lead to the 
destruction of civil and religious liberty. 

The last time I was in this building — certainly in connection with any po- 
4itical organization — the cry was then " Young America," and I was hardly 
permitted to be considered as a fit associate for the genius of true Democracy, 
because I did not join in a cry which I had not the mo^st distant understand- 
ing of the meaning of, except that I had some vague idea that it was gotten 
up for the purpose of making Stephen A. Douglas president of the United 
States ; and as that was a purpose which I had never conceived, and most 
probably never would, I was regarded as an " old fogrj." 

Since then there seems to have been some change in the relation of par- 
ties and in the issues. We hear no more of these unchanged and unchange- 
able principles of Virginia state rights republicanism as questions of party 
controversy .•or as the watchword of the Democratic party. And now, since 
old America and young America have come together, and that young Amer- 
ica with a little more prudence and discretion than she manifested before, did 
come to take counsel of old America; and when they have both joined 
hands together to form a great American party, those who then made this 
cry about young America say no more about it, but seemed disposed to em- 
brace in their comprehensive patriotism old Europe, all Europe, Asia, part 
of Africa, all creation, and the rest of mankind. 



184 

T said, gentlemen, that in regard to some of the details of this basis of 
principles of Know-Nothingism, I was not prepared to adopt them in all their 
breadth and length. I do not bind myself by any pledge, either written, 
spoken, or sworn — that I never will, imder any circumstances, vote for for- 
eigners for any office. That is a matter that I will leave; altogether at my 
discretion. Were I to act otherwise, I should be abandoning the ground 
which I have maintained all my life, and upon which I can now stand up and 
defy those Democratic denunciations that are hurled against me. I have 
never been in a party caucus in my life, in Congress or out of it. 

While Ihcse are my views of party obligations and the means of carrying 
out objects of party organization, I have no right to be a censor upon those 
who, as party men, pursue a different course and entertain other opinions. 
The American party chooses to hold their meetings in secret, as the Whig 
and Democratic party have been and are in the habit of holding secret cau- 
cuses, by night or day. This party enter, it is said, into mutual obligations 
as to their party action. No matter what is their form, they can't be held 
more binding than the Democrats claim to hold the implied obligations of 
their, party. A violation of them, by disobeying the behest of the party, 
quitting it, is followed by the most vehement denunciation — while this party, 
as T understand, allows every man to gO' out of the party when he pleases, 
and his obligations are at once at an end, without denunciation. With the 
Democratic party it does not seem to be so, for although there is no oath 
taken, no pledge registered, no man that acts with them can dare to defy 
their behests and dissent from their decrees. If he does — " Off with his 
head. So much for Buckingham." 

The freedom of thought and opinion which they allow at this day is hap- 
pily illustrated in an anecdote which is told of one of Napoleon's marshals, 
when Napoleon was a candidate for the First Consulship for life. It was to 
be determined by universal suffrage. Marshal Augekaw addressed his divi- 
sion in the following words: "Soldiers, there is an election to-day to deter- 
mine whether Napoleon shall be Consul for life. It is to be a matter of the 
free choice of the people. You will march to the polls and vote just as you 
think proper; but if you vote against Napoleon, I will shoot you as soon as 
you come back." While I do not, and cannot according to my notions about 
party engagements, come under its obligations, I agree that, as a general 
rule, yours is a proper principle of action, and shall probably act upon it 
practically myself. There inay be occasion under some very peculiar cir- 
cumstances which should induce a departure from that course, in respect to 
the exclusion of a foreigner from all political offices. But I maintain against 
the world in arms, that free citizens of this country, native or foreign, have 
the right to enter into such an agreement without violating the rights of any 
other citizens, and without infringing upon any principle of the constitution 
or the bill of rights, or any other guarantee. 

It is to my mind one of the strangest and most extraordinary perversions 
of principle that ever has been seriously insisted upon, that the rights of 
foreigners are affected because a portion of the people of Virginia, who re- 
gard it as a question of high and important public policy, say, and unite 
themselves together for the purpose of maintaining the principle, that for- 
eigners should not be allowed to have the political offices of the country. 

For what are the rights of foreigners? The rights of foreigners under 
our laws are to come here and acquire a residence and carry on their busi- 
ness under the a^gis and protection of our laws, — to sit down under their 
own vine and fig tree, and after spending the term of probation fixed by 
law to entitle them to the right of suffrage, to exercise that right, and, so far 
as the Constitution permits, to be capable of election to any office if the 
people choose to confer it ujwn them — and because a portion of the people, 



185 

in the exercise of their fundamental, indisputable and essential rights, say 
■\ve won't vote for you for political oflices, tliey arc represented as acting in 
direct conflict with the Constitution and the principles of civil liberty. 
Foreigners have exactly the same right, when they become citizens, to say 
we won't vote for you, and I suppose nobody would pretend to say that was 
a violation and invasion of your rights. 

Why, gentlemen, do you know — and I suppose you don't, for you Know 
Nothing — do you know that this principle, so destructive of the rights of 
foreigners, which you have advocated and which you state is one of the 
rules of action of your organization is not your thunder at all. You are the 
copyists merely. You have borrowed the thunder, and of whom do you suppose ? 
We have a Constitution here which, as I told you sometime ago, I had read once 
or twice, and we find in that Constitution that no person shall be eligible to the 
office of governor unless he have attained the age of thirty years, is a native 
citizen of the United States, and has been a citizen of Virginia so many 
years. The lieutenant governor shall be elected at the same time, and for the 
same term, and his qualifications and manner of election shall be the same ; 
so that here is the Know Nothing principle — so fatal and destructive to the 
right of foreigners, so consistent with equal rights of all citizens — incorpo- 
rated into the fundamental law of the land ; so that if you wanted to vote 
for foreigners, every one of you, the Constitution forbids your doing so 
for the office of governor or lieutenant governor of the commonwealth. 

Well, now, you have only carried it a little further than the Constitution. 
The Constitution does not prohibit you from doing as you propose in regard 
to voting. It is a matter left to the exercise of your will. It is perfectly 
competent for the citizen, in the exercise of his fundamental and essential 
right to select for himself any particular individual to vote for. The princi- 
ples v.-hich govern his action in this regard cannot of course be affected by 
any constitutional enactment, nor can they, by any means, be said to con- 
flict with any provision in our Constitution. But lest you might, peradven- 
ture, put a foreigner into the office of governor, or lieutenant governor, 
our legislators have put an insuperable barrier in the Constitution — you can- 
not do it. 

And now, gentleman, who do you suppose inflicted this violation of the 
rights of foreigners, and incorporated it into the Constitution ? In the con- 
vention which formed the Constitution, it was moved by Mr. Hunter, to 
amend the report by striking therefrom the word "native," so as not to 
permit foreigners to be elected to the office of governor. 

Mr. Letcher moved to amend the amendment by striking out in the 2d 
a:id 3d lines the words, " shall be a native citizen of the United States." 

The question upon the adoption of the amendment being put to the Con- 
vention, was decided in the negative. 

The question then recurring upon the motion of Mr. Hunter, was decided 
in the negative : ayes 49, noes 52. 

Those who voted in the negative were Messrs. John Y. Mason, (Presi- 
dent,) Banks, Beale, Bocock, Botts, Bowls, Braxton, Burgess, Richard C. 
Boyd, Chambers, Chambliss, Chilton, Cocke, Deneale, Douglas, Edmunds, 
Edwards, Faulkner, Finney, Floyd, Fultz, Fuqua, M. R. H. Garnett, Mus- 
coe Garnet, Goode, Hall, Hill, Kenny, Leake, Lucus, IMcCandlish, Wm. 
Martin, Moore, Newman, Price, Reeves, Saunders, Scoggin, Frances, W. 
Scott, Shell, B§rry H. Smith, James Smith, Archibald Stuart, Tavlor, Tu- 
nish, Turnbull, J. Watts, Whittle, Whilley, Wingfield, Wise, Woolfolk, 
Wysor. 

We find among those whose names are recorded in the negative the elite 
of the Democracy. The exclusion of foreigners, this dangerous violation of 
the rights of foreigners kept in the Constitution by the reform Convention 



186 

of Virginia, which boasted its pre-eminent defence of equal rights ! Can it 
be possible? Tell it not in Gath. Proclaim it not in the streets of Askalon. 
You Know-Nothings do know nothing. It is not your invention at all. Lis- 
ten to it, you foreigners who have been deluded and bamboozled bv this 
clamor, that the American party wore your peculiar enemies, because they 
were depriving you of your equal rights. Those very people who have 
aroused your prejudices and excited your passions, not content with saying 
that they Vvould not vote for you for the ofhce of governor as private citizen, 
have actually put it into the Constitution that you shall not be vofed for by 
anybody. Let the Hon. S. A. Douglas liear it, and learn that if his gallant 
and brave and patriotic fellow-citizen. General Shields, were here in Vir- 
ginia, although he were ready to shed, as I have no doubt he is ready to 
shed, a hogshead of blood, if he had it, in defence of the country — if he 
were here a citizen of Virginia, he would be incapable by law — by the Con- 
stitution — of receiving the office of governor, or the comparatively insig- 
nificant office of lieutenant governor, although every American in the State 
were anxious to make an exception in his favor to this generaliule, in 
consideration of his great gallantry and patriotism. This has been done, 
not by the accursed Know- jYo things, but by a majority of the Convention 
of Virginia, who have engrafted it into the Constitution to stand for all 
time. 

But, gentlemen, nor was the reform convention entitled to this discovery 
of wisdom and prudence of putting some safe guarantees against permitting 
the high political offices of the country to be filled by foreigners. You have 
a similar provision in the Constitution of the United States and the Consti- 
tution of Virginia of 1831, and you have a piece of legislative history in 
the law of Virginia even still more striking and remarkable. In the year 
1786 the Legislature of Virginia passed this law, and I desire you to 
consider the views which seemed to have governed the legislators of that 
day. I will read the statute to which I refer: 

"The Speaker read from 'Henning's Statues at Large,' as follows : 

" 1st. Whereas it is the policy of all infant States to encourage popula- 
tion among other means by an easy mode for the admission of foreigners to 
the rights of citizenship; 3'et wisdom and safety suggest the propriety of 
guarding against the introduction of secret enemies, and of keeping the of- 
fices of Government in the hands of citizens intimately acquainted with the 
spirit of the Constitution and the genius of the people, as well aspernanently 
attached to the common interest. 

"2. Be it therefore enacted by the General Assembly, that all free per- 
sons born within the territory of this commonwealth, all persons not being 
natives, who have obtained a right to citizenship under the act entitled, An 
act declaring who shall be deemed citizens of the commonwealth, and also 
all children wheresoever born, whose fathers or mothers are or were citi- 
zens at the time of the birth of such children, shall be deemed citizens of 
this commonwealth, until they relinquish that character in manner hereinafter 
mentioned ; and that all persons other than alien enemies who shall migrate 
into this state, and shall before some court of record give satisfactory proof 
by oath, (or being Quakers or Mononists, by affirmation,) that they intend 
to reside therein, and also to take the legal oath of affirmation for giving 
assurence of fidelity to the commonwealth, (which oaths or affirmations the 
clerk of the court shall enter on record, and give a certificate thereof to the 
person taking the same, and shall, on or before the first day of October an- 
nually, transmit to the Executive a list of the persons who shall have taken 
the said oath or affirmations, reciting their nation and occupation (if any) to 
be by them entered in a book to be kept for that purpose, for which he shall 
receive the fee of one dollar;) shall be entitled to all the rights, privileges 



187 

and advantages of citizens, except that they shall not be capable of election 
or appointment to any office, legislative, executive, or judiciary, until an ac- 
tual residence in the state of fivk years from the time of taking such oaths 
or allirmations aforesaid: nor until they shall have evinced a permanent 
attachment to the state by having intermarried with a citizen of this com- 
monwealth, or a citizen of ar)}' other of the United States, or purchased 
lands to the value of one hundred pounds therein." 

Mr. Patton proceeded : — That was the idea of the patriots and sages of 
the revolution, at that early period, when the policy of this infant slate was 
especialh' to encourage immigration. That law continued in force in Vir- 
ginia certainly until 1852, when Congress passed its naturalization laws. 
And it seems to have been supposed by very eloquent lawyers and able 
men, that this law was still in force, notwithstanding the passage of the 
naturalization laws by Congress ; it was re-enacted in '92, which was be- 
fore the naturalization law, and continued in the Code of 1819, prepared by 
Watkins Leigh, one of the ablest jurists of the country. It remained in 
the statute book until 1850, when the revisors of that time, finding it there, 
and believing it was supperseded b}' the naturalization law of Congress left 
it out of the Code. But there it stands as a monument of the opinions of 
the then illustrious sages of the revolution. This law was made about the 
very time — whether it was one of the laws reported by the committee, I 
don't know — that Jefferson, Pendleton and Wythe were appointed to revise 
the laws of Virginia. Here is the Know-Nothing principle with a ven- 
geance ! 

Gentlem.en, this cry about the rights of foreigners is all gammon. No- 
body proposes ; no man that I have ever seen ; no paper that I ever read, 
advocating or sustaining this Know-Nothing or American party movement, 
has said or written anything indicating a purpose to violate any rights of 
foreigners. A foreigner has no right in this country except what the laws 
give. It is wholly a matter of domestic policy, and for the consideration 
of the people of the United States, under what circumstances they will ad- 
mit foreigners into the country, or whether they will admit them at all — 
whether, when they come here, they will allows them to become citizens — 
upon what terms of probation, and under what forms and conditions. My 
opinion is, that viewing the vast increase in immigration — the change in our 
condition ; the vast numbers and rapid increase of our own population — that 
the time has arrived materially to change our naturalization laws — to in- 
crease very considerably the length of probation, before admission to the 
rights of citizenship, and provide other and more efficient securities, that 
those who are to receive these rights are fit depositaries of them by their 
moral character — knowledge of the principles of our institutions, and im- 
bued with devotion to our constitution. 

These are matters, however, of detail to be disposed of by Congress. It 
would be premature for me to undertake to consider or define any specific 
views as to the proper provisions. They must be left to the wisdom of 
Congress exercised with a full view of the exigencies of the country at the 
time. 

I believe that there are some over-zealous advocates of the American 
party, who go to extreme lengths, such as preventing the immigration of 
foreigners out and out, and repealing the naturalization laws. Now I am in 
favor of neither. I do not understand the Virginia American party to be in 
favor of either. I say, let the foreigners come, and if I could remember 
here, I would speak over again that speech which seemed to have been ad- 
mired so much by my Democratic friends. I would say, let them come, 
and forbid them not — the industrious and pains-taking German from his 
fader land, the gay Frenchman from the fertile plains and vine-clad hills of 



188 

his beautiful France, the whole-souled and gallant Irishman — let them 
come. But let them come with a means of living ; let them come to better 
their fortune by their industry, adding to the industrial products of the coun- 
try itself, by becoming permanently located amongst us, by raising families 
amongst us ; and when they have stayed here a suthcient length of time — 
all the time prescribed by our laws, and have given proper assurances, such 
as the details of the law of Congress may prescribe, that they really un- 
derstand the principles of our government, and properly estimate the value 
of our sj'stem, let them be received as citizens amongst us. But take care. 
I would appeal to every industrious, intelligent and sobei-minded foreigner 
himself, if this is not a principle which is necessary for his and the rights 
of his children — take care that our shores be not flooded by the paupers and 
criminals cast off by the old, declining governments of Europe — sent here 
to be supported by us, and to fill our poor-houses, and our penitentiaries. And 
if fhere be an}^ foreigner who is not satisfied about that, I pray and beseech 
him to read Valentine Heckler's letter. In my poor estimate, it is worth 
all the speeches that have been made or will be made from now until Christ- 
mas upon that subject. 

Talk about violating rights, &.c., gentlemen, I have no hostility to for- 
eigners. Why should I? My father was a^ Scotchman, and my grand- 
father was a Scotchman, and the first, I believe, the only general officer who 
died in battle in defence of the country in the revolutionary struggle. These 
propositions, as I understand them, are just as essential for the true inter- 
ests, and for the protection of the true rights of foreigners who come here 
and become established amongst us, as they are for natives, and nothing but 
a misconception and misunderstanding of the true purposes and objects of 
this association, could have possibly created such a storm among a consider- 
able portion of foreigners, or any other persons. 

As to the religious question, gentleman, lam afraid that I cannot consider 
myself entirely fit to consider such a subject as that; I am afraid, God help 
me, I have not much religion of any sort, though I see that somebody has 
made the wonderful discovery that the Winchester ticket is made up of a 
Methodist, a Baptist, a Presbyterian and Episcopalian. I believe I am my- 
self nearer the Episcopalian than any other; I don't live more than a square 
and a half from the church. Now, I understand that nobody belonging to 
this much and terribly abused party — for I think it is and has been the worst 
abused that ever has risen in the country, not excepting the Abolitionists, who 
deserve it most richl}' — I do not understand that any man belonging to this 
organization desires to interfere with any civil or religious rights of Catholics, 
any more than with the civil and refigious rights of Protestants. Nobody 
disputes the right, or designs to interfere with the liberty, of the members of 
that Church in worshiping God according tojtheir own consciences. Nobody 
designs to interfere with their right to believe that what is proclaimed by the 
Pope as religious faith, is an infallible truth. No person desires to interfere 
with their belief that they must take their conviction of religious duty from 
the Pope and not from the Bible. Nobody denies their right to believe in 
transubstantiatlon or consubstantiation, or in the Immaculate Conception of 
the Virgin Mary, which has been recently declared by his hohness the 
Pope, or any other article of faith. 

So far as any person undertakes to say that he will not vote for a Catholic, 
he exercises his undeniable right. It is equall}' competent for persons out- 
side the order to take that position, nor do I believe that they would be 
guilty, if they choose to take such a position, of any violation of the rights of 
Catholics, either civil or religious. How far the charges of temporal alle- 
giance on the part of Catholics to the Pope are justified, I am not aware. It 
is strange that while some Cathohcs deny the temporal authority of the Pope 



189 

over them, others of their own chiirch, some of them high in position, do 
maintain that they are thus bound. 

Well, I know not who is right and who is wrong about tliat ; but this I do 
know, that if it is establi.-^hed that we have a body of men here who are un- 
der the temporal authority of a foreign potentate, or any other religious head, 
domestic or foreign, in the exercise of their civil rights, it would be a justifi- 
able ground upon which we should abstain from conferring any office of po- 
litical power or influence upon any such man — I care not whether he be 
Catholic, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Methodist, Baptist, or of any other reli- 
gion. Just convince me that, as a religious congregation or body, they are 
controlled by a Pope abroad or a Bishop here, and I would give none of them 
my vote for any office of political power or trust, because that is to us a dan- 
gerous exercise of the right of citizenship, dangerous to them, dangerous to 
civil liberty, dangerous because it is a practical union of church and state, 
under which, wherever it exists, the tree of liberty withers and dies. With 
such convictions, I cannot hesitate to adopt that portion of the Know-Nothing 
platform which refers to religious toleration. It is this: 

"That the American doctrine of religious toleration, and entire absence of 
all proscription for opinion's sake, should be cherished as one of the very 
fundamental prrticiplcs of our civil freedom, and that any sect or party which 
believes and maintains that any foreign power, religious or political, has the 
right to control the conscience or direct the conduct of a freeman, occupies 
a position which is totally at war with the principles of freedom of opinion, 
and which is mischievous in its tendency, and which principle, if carried 
into practice, would prove wholly destructive of religious and civil liberty." 
Well, then, gentlemen, another great and formidable ground of assault 
upon this American party — upon those 40, or 50, or 60,000 of the people of 
Virginia, is, that they are laboring in the cause of Abolitionism. Fifty 
thousand Virginia gentlemen of intelligence, of property, of character, com- 
bined to promote the cause of abolitionism ! Terrible conspiracy, most dan- 
gerous and mischievous politicians! Why, gentlemen, the very fact of the 
composition of this order is a standing refutation of th'is most singular impu- 
tation. But if you wanted any other evidence of it just take the testimony 
of Mr. Greely, or Weed, the peculiar organ of W. H. Seward, or Wade of 
Ohio, or Giddings, all of whom denounce this American party as the deadly 
enemy of the abolition party. 

I received a newspaper this morning, I believe, containing the last fulml- 
nations (for they seem to have some Popes among the abolitionists) of Mr. 
Giddings upon the subject. I will read them for you, together with some re- 
marks from the Chicago Journal, an abolition paper. Speaking of the Know- 
Nothings, he says : 

"There are few foreigners whom I would be less willing to trust in office, 
than those who are so active in their efforts to arouse the popular feeling 
against our emigrant population, while themselves remain perfectly quiet, 
and see our native born Americans, (that is, runaway negroes,) from Ohio, 
and other free states, seized and sold into interminable slavery ; aye, they 
not only remain quiet under such insults, but insist that the people shall not 
discuss the impropriety of such a crime." 

" I would a thousand times rather vote for an honest Lover of libert}', 
though a Catholic, than for many Protestant Doctors of Divinity, who have 
so long denied our obligation of God's ' higher law,' and endeavor to recon- 
cile us to the infamous fugitive slave enactment. The time has arrived 
when men should be judged by their action by their political conduct, rather 
than by prejudices attached to a name or sect." 

The Chicago Journal — an Abolition print — quotes a passage from Gov. 
Smith's speech in defence of Know-Nothingism, and says : 



190 

"There it is in a nut shell. Foreigners who come to this country, settle 
in free states, with instincts iigainst slavery, 

"For these instincts the South is to hunt them down, while freemen at 
the North shout forth the 'tally ho!' to the chase. Aside from the oath- 
bound, proscriptive intolerance of the order, there seems enough in its slavery 
instincts to cause all friends of freedom to view its progess with- alarm." 

That, continued Mr. Patton, is the testimony upon the one side, and then 
we have our Virginia papers denouncing this party and the leaders of the 
party without measure, and denouncing it as an abolition party. There 
really seems to be something very amusing and curious in the idea of seeing 
this great American omnibus moving along upon the railroad, which people 
believe is going to lead to the terminus of triumph and success, and the 
leaders of the Virginia Democracy trying to pull it ofTthe track because it is 
loaded with runaway slaves, carrying them to the North, while on the other 
side we have Greely, Giddings, and all'that party pulling at it with all their 
might, because it is catching runaway slaves to bring them back. Well, if 
they will keep on pulling in that way, one pulling on one side and the other 
on the other, as action and re-action is equal, " with a long pull, a strono- 
pull, and a pull altogether," the car will be kept steady in its course, and 
will arrive at its destiny without any sort of difhculty. 

But, this oath-bound organizatior^ as Mr. Giddings calls it. Well, gentle- 
men, as I said before, I do not belong to this secret organization. I never 
belonged to a secret society in my life, although most of my family were 
Masons. I have some sort of scruples and fastidiousness which prevented 
me at all times from going into any place to assume any secret engagement. 
But, surely we are not going at this time of day to denounce secret associa- 
tions as dangerous and mischievous, and ruinous to the country merely be- 
cause they are secret. I hope we are not to have the Anti-Masonic party 
revived. The question whether the secret character is objectionable or not 
depends upon the objects of the organization. The reason which they had 
to make it secret, assume any secret engagement, is manifest to all who can 
estimate the extraneous influences of party, and (he consequences of an open 
repudiation of former party fealtv. 

But we are justified in taking it for granted that there is nothing dangerous 
in it, as good fruits come out of it; and I would no sooner believe that my 
venerable friend (pointing to Dr. Merritt on his left,) if he be a Know- 
Nothing, which I do not know, but suppose, I w'ould just as soon suspect my 
venerable friend would be a member of a secret association, red with con- 
spiracy against the liberty of the country, as I would believe that you, or 
you, or you, (pointing to several prominent Masons,) or any other gentleman 
not belong to this organization, would unite in such a conspiracy. Gentle- 
men, this is all stuff. 

We know what this secrecy is, and what it was for. They have pro- 
claimed their principles and basis. They proclaim that it is a peculiar organ- 
ization for building up a party to sustain certain principles. If these princi- 
ples are good, of what importance is it, that they choose to go together and 
consult about them, and discuss the ways and means to procure their ends in 
secret. Is not every political association practically secret in its operations 
and its communications with other associations arfiliafed with it, and in all 
the machinery calculated to give effect and success to their political objects? 
We know that it is. We know that the great mass of the party have nothing 
to do with all this preliminary management, and in truth know nothing 
about it. 

No, gentlemen, we know what the object of this secrecy is, or at least I 
think we do, and I think it is stated in a very able letter, issued recently from 
some council in New York. It gives very fully the objects of this organiza- 



191 

tlon, and the reasons of Its secrecy. T will read you some extracts copied 
into the Lynchburg Virginian, from a Pennsylvania paper, which is opposed 
to this Know-Nothing organization. It is perfectly well known that it was 
designed to protect those who were desirous of joining this party from the 
terrors and denunciations of the old parties to which they might belong. 
Possibly there are many men, honest, industrious and sober men, men whose 
bread depends on not quarrelling with their party, who, though desirous of 
joining this new organization, could not do so unless they could be protected 
from The consequences of an open avowal of the fact that they had joined 
the new party. [The remarks of the Pennsylvania paper were read.] I will 
now read from the Lynchburg Virginian some commentary on the extract 
which I have referred to: 

" We need only look over the columns of any Democratic press in the 
state, to perceive how necessary it was that the members of the new party 
should protect themselves behind the shield of secrecy. Whenever a Dem- 
ocrat is discovered in connection with the movement, regardless of his rights 
as a citizen, and his feelings as a man, he is stigmatized as a miscreant and 
traitor, and held up to the scorn and contempt of the world. The rigor of 
its party discipline is such that few men are bold enough to incur the vindic- 
tive and relentless penalties of absolving their allegiance to the Democratic 
organization. The law of Russian despotism which makes it a capital offence 
for a subject to quit the realm, without permission of his imperial master, is 
not more stringent or more rigorously enforced than the obligation of the 
Democratic fealty, which demands a perfect and perpetual adhesion. The 
regulations of military service have been adopted into their code — and de- 
serters are either sliot without mercy, or drummed out of camp with the 
ignominious notes of the rogue's march. It would have been impossible for 
the American organization to have obtained recruits from that party, had 
they not been protected by an obligation of secrecy, in withdrawing from 
one body and uniting with the other. And if the object and principles of 
the party are in themselves patriotic and proper, this condition of member- 
ship will be excused as a necessary and sole means of promoting their 
strength — and the only proper subject of enquiry and comment remaining is 
as to the purposes, not the character, of the organization." 

Besides all that, we now have it pretty well understood that the purposes 
and objects of this secrecy having been attained, and the party being strong 
enough to sustain itself," the veil of secrecy will soon be removed. And 
then everybody will probably wonder what a great fuss was made about this 
secrecy, which at last may turn out to have been no secret at all, except in 
regard to some particular modes and details of proceeding. 

Now, gentlemen, I believe I have said pretty much all that I designed to 
say, thougli I may have forgotten something. One of the papers of the 
city, a very respectable paper, and edited by a very able, amiable, facetious 
gentleman', published some time ago, a speech of mine, made here at this 
place, in good humored raillery of the Taylor Convention, a speech which I 
suppose must have been considered by my Democratic friends as exceedingly 
funny, considering the vast amount of ■printed hnifrliter which it seems to 
have' occasioned. "Well, now, in perfect good humor towards Mr. Hughes, 
for whom I entertain feelings of kindness and respect, I beg leave to say that 
it is a little strange to me, that .while he was making himself so merry over 
' it, it never occurred to him that there was another convention to which that 
speech about the cat in the meal tub might possibly have some apphcation, 
as well as the Taylor Convention. There was a certain Convention which 
assembled not very long ago at Staunton, where there was also a cat in the 
meal tub, and there was a certain Archibald-Beil-the-cat, who threatened to 
hang the bell around puss' neck, at the Convention, so that there should be 



192 

no mouse running about there nibbling at the cheese without danger of being 
caught. But some conj-iderations overruled this bold intent. Harmony was 
thought more expedient than the assertion of principle, or like Bob Acres, 
his courage oozed at his fingers' ends. Nobody knows to this day what are 
the principles of the Virginia Democracy upon Hunter's land bill. 

There is another matter suggested by this reference to the land bill which 
presents considerations of great importance in reference to the question of 
foreign immigration. One of the most mischievous habits of legislation has 
grown up in Congress in reference to new territories in the west and north- 
Avest — and a course of legislation inconsistent, as it seems to me, with the 
spirit of the Constitution. 

I allude to the organizing territories so that every foreigner — although he 
may have only been in the country a short time (six or twelve months) I 
believe, becomes a voter in these territories. It is in those states, built up 
by that population to a great extent — a population who cannot speak our lan- 
guage, or read or write any language — a great many of them — it is in, I say, 
those states, built up by a population of this cast, that a great and important 
political power is growing up which, before many years at the present rate 
of immigration, would have the power to control the"^ destinies of the country. 
And besides all that, in connection with this course of legislation in regard 
to the territories, we have projects of practical agrarianism appropriating the 
public lands to all who will go and settle upon them without price or at merely 
nominal prices, furnishing bounties to immigration and thus filling up those 
states to a large extent with such foreign population, and stimulating into a 
natural and artificially rapid growth those states, thus increasing the prepon- 
derance of political power against the southern states. 

Such are the views presented by ex-governor Smith, expressed in a spirit 
of manly firmness and independence. I honor him for it, and hope and 
believe that he will be able to breast the storm and carry his election 
triumphantly. What better illustration can you have of the arbitrary power 
assumed by party, than that such a man as ex-governor Smith has had abuse 
and invective poured out upon him, notwithstanding his unflinching, enduring, 
undeviating de^^otion to the Democratic party, because he will not vote for a 
gentleman for govornor who has been nominated by them ? No man has 
rendered more party service than he has. And now for this single act of 
disobedience towards a decree of party, he is to be hunted down with indig- 
nation and fury. 

Gentlemen, I understand that some laudable and disinterested anxiety was 
expressed to know what my views were upon the Kansas and Nebraska bill. 

Well, really, I did not expect that such an inquiry would be made of me, 
beins: merely a candidate for the attorney-generalship. But disposed to 
gratify all rational curiosity, I will give my experience on that subject. I 
never read either the Kansas or Nebraska bill, if there are two of them. All 
I know about it is, that a particular object was to repeal the Missouri Com- 
promise, and I confess I did not see any great importance in that compromise 
law, as I always considered that the Missouri was unconstitutional. In truth, 
I know very little about the Kansas and Nebraska bill; but finding that the 
great body of the southern delegation were in favor of it, I also was anxious for 
the passage of the hill. I don't see what importance it is to those who make 
the inquiry to ascertain my views in this matter, since I do not think they 
would vote for me if I was for or against it. It cannot be of any importance 
to them either way, for Gen. Millson, who voted against, and my friend, 
John Caskie, who voted for it, receive their support alike. 

I am sorry that I have consumed so much of your time. There are other 
gentlemen whom you will be glad to hear, and it is proper, therefore, that I 
should give way. I desire simply to say, that all this time I have been dis- 



193 

cussing questions unconnected with the ofTice of attorney-general. I cer- 
tainly do not desire any gentleman to give me his vote upon mere party 
grounds. I i'eol very little concern about the office. If the people of V^ir- 
ginia choose to elect me to it, I shall endeavor to discharge its duties the best 
I can. I certainly think I will be able, as I should strive, to deal out equal 
and exact justice to all men of all parlies, Democrats and Whigs, natives 
and foreigners, Wise men and Know-JNothings. 



From the Examiner, April 10, 1855. 

MR. PATTON AND HIS CLIENTS. 

We have discussed the '' statesmanship" of Mr. Flournot. Friends and 
neighbors of that gentleman have complained of the severity of our strictures. 
The complaint is unjust and unwarranted. We have said nothing impe^iching 
Mr. Flournoy's private character. His public character is public property. 
We have said naught of bis public character that was not strictly legitimate — 
nothing that was not allowable of a candidate for high public trust and popular 
suffrage — nothing that was not entirely just in respect to an educated Virginia 
gentleman, who had adopted the truculent politics of a Northern party or mob 
that burns churches, desecrates the ballot box, peers into the private sanctities 
of the woman's chamber under pretence of religious zeal, and prefers for office 
the Deist, the Atheist, the Infidel and the Abolitionist rather than Christians of 
the faith of IlocER B. Taney, William Gaston, Sir Thomas More, and 
Christopher Columbus. 

We have now to discuss the sentiments of Mr. Patton as proclaimed at 
length in the African Church, in this city. His speech in that building on 
Tuesday night last is fully reported in last Friday's Richnionl ^TZt/y, to which 
we refer the reader of the following paragraphs. Keciprocating fully and cor- 
dially the sentiments of kindness and respect expressed for ourselves by Mr. 
Patton on that occasion, we shall endeavor to characterize hie remarks with a 
frankness and fairness befitting those sentimeuts. • We declare in the outset, 
however, that in order to do so we shall have to treat the whole speech as aa 
elaborate joke. 

We heard that spcecli with infinite satisfsiction. We saw with pleasure that 
Mr. Patton could not bring himself to endorse the politics of the Know Nothing 
party. From beginning to end, it w.-.s the speech of an advocate for a prisi^ner 
in the box; and it committed Mr. Patton to the tenets of Know Nothingisni 
no more than his pleadings for the worst criminals at the bar of justice have 
committed him to the crimes which his professional duty required him to exte- 
nuate and whitewash. We expected his clients to growl and rebel at this treat- 
ment. W^e confidently expected that the speech would be suppressed. We felt 
it in our bones that his words had fallen upon the exuberant] feelings ot the 
meeting like a shower bath. We saw it become quieter, tamer, cooler, at every 
sentence that fell from his lips; for he denied any membership in the Order; 
he entered a caveat against secret politics and religious bigotry; he pointedly 
rebuked the over-zealous advocates of a repeal of the naturalization laws (Mr. 
Flournoy inclusive); and, so far from arrestivg immigration, he was especially 
Bweet upon the "■ industrious, pains taking German," " the gay Frenchman from 
the vine clad hills of beautiful France," " the whole soulei and gallant Irish- 
mnn," of whom he cried " let them come and forbid them not." 

We did not expect his clients to stand this. We thought they would cer- 
tainly resent such a damning with faint praise as Mr. Patton gave them. We 
thought they had some self-respect, and would send their lawyer howling humcj 
lo 



194 

and suppress his white-washing, patroniising oration, teeming with ill-disguised 
reproach and repudiation. We thought Mr. Patton had mistaken the temper 
and spirit of his client. But ^ce were wrong and Mr. Patton was right. Au 
accomplished and experienced lawyer, he managed the case exactly to the liking 
of his client. He took Sam out of the jail, dungeon, or culvert damp and dark 
in which he had been confined so long, had him cleansed, shaved, shirted, slicked 
up, and brought him into court clothed and looking the counterfeit of a gentle- 
man, lie dressed up Sam's dilapidated reputation in the most artistic and in- 
genious manner of the legal profession, taking occasion and pains as he pro- 
ceeded to smooth down and pare off the angularities and monstrosities of the 
poor fellow's character. The effect upon Sam was electric. The rascal really 
thinks he has been made au honest man of, and shouts the praises of his lawyer 
in the most boisterous and immoderate manner at the corners of all the streets. 
The fellow will soon get to thinking that he is on visiting and wine-drinking 
terms with his lawyer; but it will only be, we fear, to get himself summarily 
"sot back" by one of those charming "hints" common in the land of "the 
whole-souled and gallant Irishman." 

But we must examine the speech in the order in which it was delivered. Sam 
was not the only client of Mr. Patton on the occasion. Mr. Patton felt the ne- 
cessity of defending Mr. Patton, spite of the old Spanish proverb, '' the lawyer 
that argues his own cause has a fool for his client." There are criminal cases 
so monstrous and ugly that the legal profession often shrink from their defence. 
And where the lawyer's own conscience is not troubled with qualms of the sort, 
an indignant and outraged public frowns often upon his acceptance of a retainer. 
It is in such cases, and in such cases only, that the attorney feels obliged to pre- 
face his argument for the criminal with a labored exculpation of himself. Ac- 
cordingly, Mr. Patton's defence of Sam is prefixed by a painful apology for his 
own participation in the ugly case. 

It is true that Mr. Patton sets out with the grand airs of a Csesar or a Crom- 
•well, refusing crowns and rejecting diadems in a lofty, wholesale, and amusing 
strain ; but he soon relapses into the attorney, and plays that character out to 
the end, with a truthfulness and consistency worthy of his great reputation at. 
the bar. Our Ceesar proves conclusively that the crown icas offered to him, 
thus : 

" Let me bring to the notice of this vast assembly, and to those who have 
been disposed to impute to me ambitious motives and eagerness for high office, 
one or two simple papers, which is all the answer I mean to give to those 
charges. 

" I received, on the evening of the 18th March, from Winchester, the fol- 
lowing telegraphic despatch from a friend of mine who was a member of that 
body : 

' Will you accept the nomination for Governor? Reply immediately to this.' 
" I immediately sent the following by telegraph ; 

'I would not accept the office of Governor if every man in Virginia were to 
vote for me.' " 

He did that part majestically, and with the genuine stage strut, for he had 
evidently been studying the Cajsarean role of disinterested virtue; for it was 
uppermost in his mind. He continues : 

" By an ingenuous perversity of accusation, it might still be said that I was 
like Ceesar, rejecting the crown because I knew I could not get it. 

"On the same evening, not very long after I had received the telegraph des- 
patch which I have just read, I received this note from a gentleman in Rich- 
mond : 

' I have just received a despatch by telegraph that you were nominated for 
Governor, and requested to communicate it directly.' 



195 

"As soon as I received this note, instantly, for the purpose of preventinf^ 
any inconvenience to the Winchester Convention, such as would result from 
their making a nomination which would not be accepted, probablj causiiifr them 
to assemble again there or somewhere else to make another nomination, I sent 
the following reply : 

'I regret the information your note contains. Sevenl times durin<T tbc last 
fifteen years, I have declined being a candidate for Governor when my friends 
thought I could be elected. I will not accept the office of Governor under any 
circumstances, and though every man in the S^ate were to vote for me. Excuse 
the apparent peremptoriousness of this note.' " 

Protestations of this sort are so frequent in our day, that we believe it has 
become a conventional understanding in society not to credit them from whom- 
soever they proceed. Mr. Patton's refusal of the chance for office in a doubtful 
contest, is not the first instance of a similar discretion by many ten thousands* 
and unluckily, his .antecedents in the particular of office-holding are a^^ainst 
him. For nearly a quarter of a century the fascinations of office overcame this 
platonic disdaiu of Mr. Patton ; and the world is too uncharitable to suppose 
that a man who could consent to be a member of the House of Representatives 
at Washipgton for eight years, and to endure the petty vexatious of a Virginia 
Executive Councillor for fifteen years of his life, could repent him of that 
mode of living, in old age, even in respect to so illustrious and lucrative a 
position as the Governorship of Virginia. 

Indeed, the whole effect of this mock pageant — of this billing and cooin^ on 
the part of delegates in Winchester, and this virtuous coyness on his own side 
is destroyed by a subsequent revelation in his speech. For, after provin"', by a 
very plausible set of facts, that he did refuse the crown, he destroys the whole 
eff"ect of the scene by letting out the fact that the crown, though refused was 
never offered him : 

" It is proper to state, that the information that I was nominated for Gover- 
nor was a mistake, which of course I did not know until the followim^ day. 
There was, as I understand, no such nomination, and the distinguished gentle- 
man who has been nominated, and is so worthy to receive the suffrages of this 
American party, was the decided choice of the Convention at all times. I do 
not know that there was a single man who was favorable to my nomination, ex- 
cept the particular gentleman who sent me the despatch." 

Thus it is plain that Mr. Patton but enacted the part of a mock duke in his 
lofty rejection of the crown. The Whigs of the Winchester conclave knew 
what they \jere about in playing off these mysterious telegraphic missiles. 
Their Democratic confreres were doubtless supposed to make a muss against 
Flournoy's being entrusted with the spoils department of the ticket. Under 
these circumstances, the dispatches to Patton and his prompt waiver of the place 
designed for Flournoy, must have worked like a charm. 

The role had been rehearsed thoroughly beforehand, and Mr. Patton miirht 
have done a deal of mischief by disturbing the arrangement. He had been 
called upon in person before the loth of March ; let himself reveal the pro- 
tocol : 

" I held out no inducements to those who, in behalf of this new American 
party, called upon me for the purpose of ascertaining whether I would accept 
the nomination for Attorney General, &c., &c. I was told that this great or- 
gaoization desired, or at least a portion of the members of the Convention at 
Winchester, and probably the whole body, would desire to confer this nomina- 
tion upon me if I was willing to accept the office, without any regard to my po- 
litical opinion or my political course, &e., &c. I told them that if the Conven- 
tion should choose to confer upon me the nomination, I would accept it, assur- 



196 

ing tlicm at the same time that it would be incompatible witb my business to 
engage in the political canvass in the way of discussion, &c.,. &c." 

Such was the understanding before the 13th of March, and Mr. Patton was 
too acute to disturb or change it on the spur of a telegraphic dispatch received 
late in the night of that eventful day. Mr. Patton rejected the crown. He 
protests he did not want it and would not have it. Jlany will believe him and 
many will not. The fable of the fox and the grapes stands in the way, and the 
uncharitable perversity and cynical common sense of plain people who do see 
something illustrious, honorable and enviable in eminent position, will gloss the 
highest acts of disinterested virtue with the rouge of selfishness. 

This chronicle of his disdainful refusals of the highest office Virginia can 
confer — an office which was not too contemptible for Thomas Jefferson, Patrick 
Henry, John Tyler the elder, James Monroe or AVm. B. Giles — was not felt by 
Mr. Patton to be sufficient to sustain the argument he was submitting on this 
subject. He went on to tax still more the already strained credulity of his 
hearers. It seems that Mr. Patton, not content to reject with disdain the chair 
■which a Jefferson and a Giles have been proud to occupy, has repeatedly de- 
clined to be the Colleague of Clay, of Webster, of Calhoun, of Dickinson, of 
Dallas, of Badger, of Berrein, of Crittenden, and of other secondary persons of 
that calibre, in the annoying duties and obscure character of Senator of the 
United States. He lets the world into a secret it never would have dreum't of, 
thus : 

"And besides all that, it is now said I am animated by aspirations for the 
Senate. I say here, and now, as I have said repeatedly in the course of the 
last fifteen years, when my friends had desired to put me in nomination for that 
office, as I said about the office of Governor, I would not have the office of Sen- 
ator if every man in the Legislature of Virginia voted for me." 

The Senate of the United States will doubtless be profoundly mortified to 
learn this determination of Mr. Patton, 

" Upon what meat doth this our Csesar feed, 
That he is grown so great." 

It is evident that it was as little a part of the scheme of the Know Nothings 
to confer the vexatious troubles of a Federal Senator upon Mr. Patton as it 
was to confer upon him the spoils-distributing dutieg of Governor. The tele- 
graphic missiles of the 13th of March, and the sham suggestion of his name 
for the head of the ticket in the Winchester cabal, were plainly but intended 
to deceive and quiet the forlorne but grumbling Democrat or Democrats who 
•were entrapped in that conclave and bound by big oaths to submit to its Whig 
preferences and arrangements. 

Mr. Patton, not content with breaking loose from the Democracy and from 
the Hichmoud Junto, of which he was a member in 1852, seems determined to 
vex and harrass his old associates even as members of his own Order. He 
magnanimously yields the Federal Senatorship in advance to George Washing- 
ton Summers, and leaves his Democratic Know Nothing associates completely 
in the lurch as to that office, which will be clearly theirs by right if they suc- 
ceed in carrying the next General Assembly. For, in that event, when the 
Councils shall convene here from all parts of the State next wintiT, to dictate 
to Virginia legislators the votes they shall cast in the Senatorial election, this 
public, solemn pledge and disdainful declension beforehand of the position, on 
the part of Mr. Patton, will throw the gates wide open for the triumphant elec- 
tion of the very man whom they and the Commonwealth three years ago in- 
dignantly repudiated at the polls. For, if the Democratic Know Nothings 
shall remonstrate at the election of Summers to the Senate, the ready and 
silencing answer of their Whig managers will be — "Patton does not want the 



197 

office. Patton turns up his nose at the Senate of the United States. He as 
good as tells you, you tuust vote for Summers. lie wants to be rid of the 
annoying solicitations every body besets him with about that plaguy seat in 
the Wasliington Capitol. i)o give the man a little peace and rest. Pattoa 
had as lief go to the Penitentiary as to the Senate of the United States." 

Well, then, Mr. Patton declined the Governorship that was not offered to hira 
in favor of Mr. Flouruoy who got it— notwithstanding the electric despatches, 
and in striet'pursuance of the protocol held previously to the loth March- He 
declines the Senate of the United States also, in advance, in favor of the 
peremptory precept dictating votes to Virginia legislators — of the next winter's 
Know Nothing secret councils that shall flock to Iviuhmond, in case^they carry 
the General Assembly — declines the Federal Senate in favor of a Know Noth- 
ing Western nominee, say of George W. Summers. But Mr. Patton did ac- 
cept the Attorney Generalship, and that with a thank ye, too. He is evidently 
flattered by that nomination. In the exuberance of his gratitude he condescends 
to vouchsafe his imprimatur of respectability to a " body of men" who were 
ashamed to show their faces by daylight in a small village, and to write their 
true names upon the tavern registers "of the town. He is very marked in his 
manner of giving a good character to the suspicious gentry who found it con- 
venient to travel with an alias. They are his clients of whom ho says : 

" I was nominated for this office under the circumstances to which I have re- 
ferred, by a large, respectable, intelligent and patriotic body of men, as much 
so, to the extent that 1 have information in regard to them, as any body of mea 
in any quarter, any State, or anywhere else in the world — a body of men repre- 
senting, as I understand now, (for T Know Nothing about the supposed elective 
streng'th of this American party) 50 or G0,000 of the free citizens of this Com- 
monwealth." 

After so emphatic an endorsement from a rejector of crowns and avoider of 
Senates, who will say that the Know Nothings are not respectable people? 
They nominate Mr. JPatton to get a dash of respectability, and of course are in 
ecstacies over the fullness and completeness of his certification of character. 

But Sara is not at all discriminating in these demonstrations of gratitude. 
Mr. Patton is very explicit in confining his encomiums to the immediate " body 
of mqn" assembled at Winchester. He accepts their nomination without the 
principles of their por/'^ "annexed." Attorney-like, he had not condescended 
to read Sam's " papers" until after his retainer, and he takes the most cruel 
pains, in consenting to appear in Sam's case,, to give the cold shoulder to the 
fellow's gutter politics. Previously to the Winchester Convention, he talked 
out flat on this subject : 

"I sincerely and mo.st earnestly discouraged the idea, and told them very 
frankly that I had not eren read the last's jrrinnplrs which they had put forth 
to tlie public as containing the great objects for which this organization was 
formed, and which they were endeavoring to accomplish." 

They replied, importunately : 

"That this office was an office wholli/ disconnected with political controvenijf 
in reference to the discharge of the peculiar duties which devolved upon it ; 
that it was an office which had no patronage connected with it, and that, esti- 
mating very highly, much more highly than I had vanity to aspire to, my qua- 
lifications and fitness for the office, they desired to confer the office upon me in 
reference to the r estimate of my qualifications and fitness for it, without refe- 
rence at all to ani/ political objects. I told them that if, under these circura- 
stanees, as it was an office in the line of my profession, an office which, although 
I had no particular desire to obtain it, would yet not be unacceptable to me, 
&c., &c." 



198 

After tlie nomination was announced to him, he wrote a letter, most cruelly 
and pointedly ignoring Sam's principles ; and, in his speech, thus describes his 
feelings in accepting Sam's case, keeping still a cold shoulder upon the fellow's 
politics : 

" I could not feel myself altogether at liberty to refuse to permit such a body 
of gentlemen of all parties, irrespective of tlie 'political basis tJiey might have in 
this movement, to present my name to the people of Virginia, as a candidate 
for an office ivholly disconnected with political parties or strife, and utterly rid 
of all political patronage." 

Thus Mr. Patten gave his clients distinctly to understand in the protocol pre- 
vious to the Winchester Convention, in his letter of acceptance, and in his 
speech at the African Church, that he joined in with them only as counsel, and 
would not consent to adopt their politics. Before the protocol, poor devils, he 
had never heard of them, or thought enough of their affair to read over their 
t)asis principles. He had no time to bestow on such trifles as the Know Noth- 
ing movement, and his valuable thoughts were too much absorbed with the ca- 
ses of other clients to think of the case of Sam — the promising progeny of a 
New York Penitentiary jail-bird. 

But we are not done with Mr. Patton's defence of himself. He entertains 
the same imperial repugnance to party ties as to the glittering honors which 
such men as Jefferson and Monroe, Webster and Calhoun have not despised. 
His morals on this subject are very elevated and yet very convenient : 

" And yet that act, the act of permitting my name to be presented to the 
people of Virginia, has been denounced as an act of treachery to party, and a 
violation of party obligations. I never entered into any party obligations which 
would prevent me from allowing a majorittj of the p>eopl(i of Virginia to elect 
me to any office ichich I was ivilli)u/ to take, no matter who may have made the 
nomination, or when or where it may be announced." 

That is capital. It is so characteristic. His allegiance to party ceases at the 
moment his party sinks into a minority. He never " enters into a party obli- 
gation" save with the understanding that he is to play quits whenever he sees 
the majority on t'other side. Soldiers who have done thus have bean classed 
by history in the catalogue of Arnolds, Georgeys and Dalghetties ; and we are 
very glad that Mr. Patton has taken pains to establish the understanding that 
he goes over to the Know Nothings simply as an attorney. 

Of course all who have acted upon the rule of Mr. Patton, just laid down, 
can safely proclaim as he does : 

"He little knows my antecedents who does not know that I have never per- 
mitted myself to be governed or controlled by the dictates of a party, in regard 
to party nominations or party measures, anywhere or on any occasion." 

Such words would sound handsomely in the mouth of any but a Know Noth- 
ing nominee. Whatever Mr. Patton's antecedents may do in vindication of his 
abandoning the Democratic party, his " present cedents " present a beautiful 
illustration of his disgust of party. He who quits either of the old political 
organizations of this country, founded each by great and good men, with avowed 
measures, avowed principles, avowed membership, with open and public tactics 
as to all their meetings and arrangements, great and small, with newspapers to 
make public all that is said in town, in country, at night and by day — in order 
to join a secret, oath bound cabal, originated by a New York penitentiary con- 
vict, loving darkness rather than light for the initiation of accomplices, the 
concoction of schemes and the devising of tactics, that conceals its every step 
and act in secrecy, whose novitiates are sworn to deny their complicity, and 
would be perjured if responding frankly and truly to a legitimate enquiry — he 



199 

who abandons either of the old political organizations to join this underground 
midnight movement, whatever other motives may be attributed to him, cannot 
be said to do so from disgust at ■party. And though Mr. Patton may deceive 
himself by such a delusion, he must expect, as he certainly must endure, the 
uncharitable reflections of the world. 

Can Mr. Patton believe he is manifesting a disgust of ^^partj/" by accepting 
overtures and nominations from Know Nothing clubs — the most intense, intole- 
rant, proscriptive, exercising, inexorable system of party drill ever invented ? — 
Is there no such thing as party in Know Nothingism ? Out of his own mouth 
shall he be judged; for in the following rather grandiloquent sentences he him- 
self recognizes a new party servitude : 

" I have been so much absorbed with ray own business that I do not think I 
have read a Governor's Message for several years, nor a President's Message, 
and the time when I read a speech in Congress, is a period which runs back to 
a time that my memory ' runneth not to the contrary.' I have, howevei*. read 
somewhat carefully at various times, since my nomination, the principles and 
basis of this Know Nuthuuj or American PAFtTY, and I have no hesitation in 
saying, that with one or two exceptions in regard to the mode of action of 
THE Px\R,TY, and the extent to which they are proposing to go, as a rule for 
themselves in their OPtGANIZATION, the principles and basis of that 
PAllTY meet my entire approbation." 

There it is — -Parti/, parti/, organization, party. Already is Mr. Patton im- 
mersed quadruply in the toils of party. Pie has leaped out of the Democratic 
frying-pan only to land in the live coals of Know Nothing strife, passion, reli- 
gious hate, and social prejudice. 

If Mr. Patton loathes and disgusts at party, he is much to be commiserated 
in his present allegiance. What a bitter rebuke is all his fine talk about party 
tyranny, upon the intolerant, fierce proscriptive partisanship of his new con- 
federates ! Did he know that he had accepted the support of an Order which 
prescribe the following qualifications for membership, carrying j)ar(y not only 
into public affairs, but into the domestic household and leveling its brutal pro- 
scription at wives and mothers ? According to the ritual : 

" A person to become a member of any Subordinate Council must be twenty- 
one years of age; he must believe in the existence of a Supreme Being as the 
creator and preserver of the Universe; he must be a native born citizen; a 
Protestant horn of Protestant parents; reared under Protestant influence, and 
not united in marriage ivith a Roman Catholic: Provided, nevertheless, that in 
this last respect, the State, District, or Territorial Council shall be authorized 
to so construct their respective constitutions as shall best promote the interest 
of the American cause in their several jurisdictions: And provided, 'moreover^ 
that no member 7cho may have a Roman Catholic loifc shall he eligible to any 
office in this Order." 

And again, his new friends are required to swear thus : 

" Obligation. — You, and each of you, of your own free will and accord, in 
the presence of Almighty God and these witnesses, your left hand resting on 
your right breast, and your right hand extended to the flag of your country, do 
solemnly and sincerely swear that you will not, under any cii'cumstances, dis- 
close in any manner, nor sufi"er it to be done by others, if in your power to pre- 
vent it, the name, signs, pass words, or the secrets of this degree; that you 
will, in aR things, conform to all the rules and regulations of this order, and to 
the Constitution and By-Laws of this or any other Council to which you may 
be attached, so long as they do not conflict with the Constitution of the United 
States, nor that of the State in which you reside; that you will, under all cir- 
cumstances, if in your power so to do, attend all regidar signs and summonses 



.200 

tliat may he thrown or sent out lnj a Brother of this, or any other degree of this 
Order; that you will support, in all political matters, for all political offires, 
Id degree onemhers of this Order, providing it be necessary for the American 
interest; that if it may be done legally, you will, when elected to any office, 
remove all foreigners, aliens or Roman Catholics from of ice ; and that you 
will, in no case, appoint such to ofi.ce. All this you promise and declare on 
your honor as Americans to sustain and abide by, without any hesitation or 
mental reservation whatever. So help you God, and keep you steadfast." 

Is not this party proscription with a vengeance ? But Mr. Patton complains 
bitterly of the crimination and denunciation that have been visited upon him- 
self for leaving party. Let him read the terrible curses he will receive if, in 
his partialities for a majority, he should soon abandon his new allegiance : 

"To all the foregoing you bind yourselves, under the no less penalty than 
that of being expelled from this Order, and of having your name posted and 
circidated throughout all the different Councils of the United States, as a PER- 
JURER, and as a TRAITOR to GOD and YOUR COUNTRY, as a he- 
ing unfit to he EMPLOYED in any BUSINESS TRANSACTION, as a 
person unicorthy the confidence of all good men, and as one at whom the finger 
of scorn should ever be pointed. So help you God !" 

Such is the machinery which is to help Mr. Patton into the Attorney Gene- 
ralship ! ! 

We cannot pursue this black and horrid aspect of the subject fartiier without 
transcending the rule of kindness and respect towards Mr. Patton with which 
we set out. 

We are glad to see Mr. Patton dodging the real politics of the Know Nothing 
party, and confining his encomiums to the I5asis Principles which they put out 
as a decoy to beguile simpler men than he. That basis is not necessarily offen- 
sive or objectionable, and we arc ready to join Mr. Patton in endorsing every 
word and line it contains except the first article, and a few clauses in the pre- 
amble, provided they are construed in the spirit of enlarged statesmanship and 
of sincere patriotism. We have not room to-day to point out the glaring dis- 
crepancies between their secret ritual and this tempting sign-board which they 
post before the doorway that leads down into their secret caverns of shame. 

We have only space left for a ^q^ of the cutting and pointed rebukes he gave 
bis clients in the course of his argument of their ugly cause. 

He will not even accept their Basis Principles unconditionally: 

"I said, gentlemen, that in regard to some of the details of this basis of 
principles of Know Nothingism, I was not prepared to adopt them in all their 
breadth and length; or to bind myself by any pledge, either written, spoken or 
sworn, — that I never will, under any circumstances, vote for foreigners for any 
office. That is a matter that I will leave altogether at my discretion. Were I 
to act otherwise, I should be abandoning the ground I have maintained all my 
life, and upon which I can now stand up and defy those Democratic denuncia- 
tions that are hurled against me." 

Sam of course did not applaud that passage. We thought we detected a 
suppressed groan, but may have been mistaken. 

Mr. Patton does not know why he cannot himself join secret societies, or 
how to describe his scruples and fastidiousness, about that matter ; but certain 
it is he does not like Dr. Fell : 

"Well gentlemen, as I said before, I don't helong to this secret organization. 
I never belonged to a secret society in my life, although most of my family 
were Masons. I have some sort of scruples and fastidiousness which prevented 
me at all times from going into any place to assume any secret engagement." 



201 

D'ul ever lawyer, who unmchov.- could never have behaved so himself, more 
ino-cniousl_y console a trembling criminal with the hope of having a felonious act 
attributed," by a lenient jury, to a lofty motive ? Yet Mr. Patton was evidently 
a little blind to this policy of his client, having a personal appreciation of the 
reason alleged for secrecy : 

" It is perfectly well known that it was designed to protect those who were 
dioirous of joining this party from the terrors and denunciations of the old 
parties to which they might belong. Possibly there arc many men, honest, 
industrious, and sober men, men whose bread depends on not quarr^'luig with 
their party, who, though desirous of joining this new organization, could not do 
so unless they could be protected from the consequences of an open avowal of 
the fact that they had joined the new party." 

Mr. Patton takes care to hint in the most delicate manner, and yet most 
emphatically, to Sam, that secrecy iclU not. do ; and that, as soon as his promis- 
ing outlaw shall wash his face and comb his soap-locks, he had better come 
boldly out of his hiding places like an honest man : 

" B'^sides all that, we now have it pretty well understood that the purposes 
and objects of this secrecy having been attained, and the party being strong 
enough to sustain itself, the veil of secresy will be removed." 

How terribly does he rap Sam over the knuckles in the following handsome 
sentences, redolent with true American feeling, and glowing with sound Demo- 
cratic sentiment : 

" I believe that there some over over-zealous advocates of this Americau 
party [Mr. Flournoy is among them] who go to extreme lengths, such as pre- 
venting the immigration of foreigners out and out, and repealing the naturaliza- 
tion laws. Now,"l am in favor of neither. I do not understand this Virginia 
American party to be in favor of either. I say, let the foreigners come, and if 
I could remember here, I would speak over again that speech which seemed to 
have been admired so much by some of my Democratic friends, I would say, 
let them come, and forbid them not — the industrious and pains-taking German 
from his fader land, the gay Frenchman from the fertile plains and vine clad 
hills of his beautiful France, the whole-souled and gallant Irishman — let them 
cjme." 

It is true, that Mr. Patton after thumping Sara soundly with these notable 
paragraphs, went on to pa'liate the fellow's conduct and to delicately instruct 
him how to behave himself in the future conduct of the canvass. Wo hope 
Sam will profit by the advice, and take his instructor's lecture in the spirit of a 
true penitent. 

Let him take Mr. Patton's advice. Let him throw away his barbarous ritual 
picked up in the purlieus of New York city — come out from his secret hiding 
places — cease his slang about the unfitness of good Christians of the Catholic 
or any Church for office, and agree to recognize merit in the pains-taking Ger- 
man, they gay Frenchman, and the whole-souled Son of Erin. Sam will thcu 
be a gentleman. His will then be a strong, respectable and potential party, 
able to efl'ect good ends by reputable means. He will then have reason to 
chant everlasting hosannas to jMr. Patton, and that gentleman will not only 
consent to be his counsel, but his friend, admirer and probably his boon com- 
panion. 



20^ 



THE NATIONALITY OF THE DExMOCRATIC PARTY IN 1855. 

The nationality of the democratic party iu 1855 presented a remarkable and 
admirable contrast to the anti-slavery fanaticism of the Know Nothing party 
in the Northern States. In every free state of the Union the Democratic party 
passed resolutions fearlessly endorsing the Nebraska and Kansas bills. That 
there may be hereafter no mistake upon this subject, we publish resolutions of 
the democracy of nearly all the free states upon the vexed questions of slavery 
and the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. They were c'bllected from the 
principal leading newspapers of the Union during the Canvass in Virginia. 

Ohio. 

Resolved, That the right of the people to govern themselves, and frame their 
own laws — a principle re-established by the passage of the act to organize the 
Territories of Kansas and Nebraska — meets our cordial approbation, and we de- 
clare our determination to adhere to such principle, no matter what miserable 
subterfuge our enemies may invent to cloak their opposition to it. 

Resolved, That we witness with painful feeling the formation of a secret po- 
litical organization in this Union under the name of " know nothings," or 
"sons of the sires of '76," whose principles, so far as we can judge, being an- 
tagonistic to the liberal principles of the democratic party, and if carried out, 
subversive of the constitution of the country, merit and receive our unqualified 
condemnation. 

Illinois. 

/ 

The democrats of Illinois, lately in convention assembled, resolved as follows : 

Resolved, That, abiding by the free spirit of our constitution, which recog- 
nises no religious test as a qualification for office, and proscribes no citizen on 
account of the place of his birth, we shall ever oppose every attempt, wh^'ther 
open or secret, to deprive our adopted citizens of the full right and privilege of 
native-born citizens, and hold in abhorrence the recent organization of the 
" know nothing" society, believing their design to be fraught with evils to the 
country. 

Resolved, That our liberty and independence are based upon the right of the 
people to form for themselves such government as they may choose; and that 
the great privilege, the birthright of freedom, the gift of heaven, secured to us 
by the blood of our ancestors, ought to be extended to future generations, and ■ 
no limitation ought to be applied, to this power in the organization of any Ter- 
ritory of the United States, of either a territorial government or State consti- 
tution, provided the government so established shall be republican, and in con- 
formity with the constitution of the United States. 

Pennsylvania. 

Resolved, That we adhere as firmly as ever to the Compromise of 1850 and 
the platform laid down by the National Convention of 1852; and that, in the 
passage of the much abused Nebraska bill of 1854, we fail to discover, as is 
alleged by the whig press, any departure from the principles or policy there so 
strongly and patriotically inculcated by the wisest and best men of the nation 
of both the great political parties. 
-'J^'^Resolvedj That a candidate before the people who may be openly or secretly 



203 

\ 

allied to the prescriptive, intolerant faction commonly called 'know nothing,' ia 
unworthy the support of any democrat, and should be opposed by every true 
friend of his country, of every parly and faith. / 

Vermont. 

Resolved, That the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill by Congress is in 
strict accordance with the constitution of the United States and the principles 
of self-government and non-intervention by Congress iu the domestic concerns 
of the States, devised by the framers of our government. 

Delaware. 

Besoli-ed, That President Pierce, by enforcing economy in the conduct of the 
various departments of the public service, by bringing to justice persons who 
had plundered the treasury under the preceding administration, by vigorously 
enforcing the laws, by fearlessly using the power vested in the Executive by the 
constitution for the arrest of improper legislation, and by lending his influence 
and wielding his power for the perpetuation of the principle of the Compromise 
of 1S50 embodied in the Nebraska bill, has proven himself an honest man, a 
faithful public officer, a sound republican, and a sagacious statesman. 

Michigan. 

Eesolved, That, believing the interests of the country required the speedy 
settlement of the broad expanse of territory lying between the western States 
and the Ptocky mountains, we cordially approve of the establinbment of territo- 
rial governments in that region ; and that Congress, in according to the people 
of the Territories of Nebraska and Kansas the right to fix and regulate their 
own domestic institutions, gave us the strongest proof of its determination to 
maintain the great republican principle of the Con;promise of 1850. 

Massachusetts. 

Resolved, That the constitution recognizes the principle of self-government 
and the power of the people, in whatever bond united with each other, whether 
in State, county, town, district or territory, to control their own institutions; 
that on this principle alone the colonies entered upon the struggle for indepen- 
dence, the confederation was established, and the federal constitution adopted j 
that only by a rigid regard for this principle can we hope to preserve our liberties 
against usurpation, rivalries, and anarchy ; and that confidence in this prin- 
ciple, old as our country, enforced by Jefi'ersou, sustained by Jackson, leads us 
to look with pride and satisfaction on every measure of the administration cal- 
culated to give it a bold and unflinching support, removing every vestige of 
federal folly from our legislation, and extending the same rights and privileges to 
new States and Territories which were claimed by, and secured to, the people of 
Massachusetts and all her sister States when they were united iu this confede- 
ration. 

New Jersey. 

Resolved, That our senators and representatives in Congress, who have in the 
legislation of 1854 stood by the compromise measures of 1850, and so manfully 
maintained the right of the people of the Territories to make the laws relating 
to their domestic concerns, and by which alone they are to be governed, deserve 
the approbation and high commendation of the lovers of the Union as faithful 
servants of the people whom they represent. 



204 

Rdiolved, That the national course of the federal administration, its measures 
and policy, based as they are on the constitution, and recognising as they do 
the rights of the States and the principles of strict construction, ever sacred to 
democracy, as well as the rights of American citizens everywhere, deserve the 
high commendation and cordial support of the nation. 

Rcwlvecl, That we will oppose by all proper means any candidate for office 
■who tavors the repeal or modification or change of the fugitive-slave law passed 
in 1850, and also any candidate who shall favor or advocate the repeal, change, 
or modification of the right of the people of the Territories of Nebraska and 
Kansas, or any other Territory, to legislate for themselves upon all subjects not 
prohibited by the constitution of the United States. 

Indiana. 

3. Resolved, That the removal of the " Missouri restriction " — a measure that 
has stultified American pretences, innovated the constitution of our country, 
that was conceive at the shrine of an unholy ambition for the "balance of politi- 
cal power," brought forth at an evil hour, when might rudely cast principle in 
the dust — is a theme deserving the gratulatious of all mankind, and those who 
brought forth and successfully carried out its obliteration merit a meed of praise 
never ending and without bounds. 

4. Resoheil, fnr'Jier, That the "Nebraska-Kansas" bill as passed, is a return 
to first principle, that was unwisely violated, and places the soil where tlie con- 
stitution found it, and where the God of Nations designed and ordered it — to 
be "inherited" and governed by those who live on and draw their subsistence 
from it. 

5. Resolved, That in this new northern party, styled " republican," alias 
" fusion," we think we see that which threatens the Union ! A northern party 
once formed and successful, a correlative southern party must of necessity fol- 
low; when the name of Union would be a moi kery, and it would remain only 
in the memories of those who survive it. Called by whatever name such a 
party may be, disunion is its tendency, and it therefore merits, and should 
receive, the unqualified reprobation of every American and lover of American 
institutions. 

G. Resolved, That, in selecting a candidate for Congress in this district, it is 
the sense of this meeting that such a one be chosen as will fully reflect the'veiws 
herein set forth, taking high, bold ground in support of the Kansas-Nebraska 
bill as passed; and that our delegates to the congressional convention be, and 
are hereby, instructed to act accordincly. 

Iowa. 

Resolved, That, as, in the acquisition of territory, all sections of the Union con- 
tributed their proportion, whether the purchase was made in blood or treasure, 
so, in our opinion, ought citizens of all sections of the Union have the right to 
equal participation in the benefits of such acquisition, controlled in the exercise of 
their rights by the constitution of the United States, as exemplified by the 
principles of the Compromise of 1850, and as carried into effect by the Ne- 
braska bill. 

Wisconsin, 

Resolved, That we shall, as a measure of justice to the North and the South, 
oppose all attempts to repeal the fugitive-slave law — believing that the repeal 
of that law would have the two-fold effect of unjustly depriving the South of 
her property, and of adding largely to a population whose increase in the North 



205 

must be deprecated by all who do not desire the spread of licentiousness, pau- 
perism, and crime. 

R&foJvrjl, That we recognise in the Nebraska bill, the fugitive-slave law, and 
the existing laws for the naturalization of foreigners, the leading is>ucs in tlio 
approaching congressional contest; and that wo here take our stand firmly in 
favor of their maintenance, and require our candidate to defend them before the 
people. 

Maine. 

The Aroostook district democrats passed the following resolutions at their 
convention ut Houlton, Maine, on the 24th : 

Rcsnh-rd, That the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people is the very 
basis of republicanism, and the integrity and security of State rights the only 
safeguards against the federal tenets of consolidation. 

Heso/rerl, That the administration of President Pierce mcrfts the undimin- 
ished confidence of the democracy, and his strict-construction principles entitle 
him to exalted rank among the truest defenders of the constitution. 

New York. 

Resolved, That the democrats of New York repeat here the expression of 
their unchanged devotion to the principles of the national democracy, as laid 
down at the Baltimore Convention of 1852, and as approved by the united 
democracy of this State in its conventions since; that we recognise in that 
platform the only sure foundation of a national party, and the only bulwark 
against the uniting and dangerous agitation of sectionalism on one side, and the 
insidious encroachments of the federal powers upon the rights of the States on 
the other, and as the best guarantee that a political organization can give of its 
fidelity to the Union and the constitution. 

Resolced, That we cousider the introduction of the clause in the Nebraska 
and Kansas bill repealing the Missouri Compromise as inexpedient and un- 
necessary; but we are opposed to any agitation having in view the restoration 
of that line, or tending to promote any sectional controversy in relation thereto : 
and we congratulate the country that the results to grow out of that measure 
are likely to prove beneficial to the people of the Territories ; and that while we 
maintain our position, that opinions in regard to the power of Congress in this 
matter are not tests in regard to democracy, we regard the act of renunciation 
by Congress of the power it has heretofore exercised over the subjects as the 
practical surrender of a formidable function on the part of the federal o-overn- 
ment, and the accession of a right on the part of the incip-ent sovereio'nties 
that are to constitute the States of the Union, the exercise of which can, in all 
probability, result only auspiciously to the people of the Territories and the 
peace of the Union. 



During the canvass there were many exceedingly able communications pub- 
lished in the Examiner and Eiujuu-er, from which we extract the followino- 
which excited much attention, and was widely copied by the press of thia 
State. 

REASONS WHY I AM A DEMOCRAT ANDxXOT A KNOW NOTHINO. 

I presume there is no doubt of the death of the Whig party, as a national 
party, unless it is silently lurking in the secret bed of Know Nothingism. 



206 

A 

f This idea a number of bold and conscientious Whigs, in the country, utterly 
repudiate ; and they would despise the day that disclosed the fact of a great 
national party bciug concealed in the womb of Know Nothingism. However, 
this cannot be doubted, that every voter who goes to the polls, in May next, 
will vote, not directly as Whig or Democrat^ but as Know Nothing or anti- 
Know Nothing. He who wishes a secret political party to rule this free, proud 
and independent nation, votes for, and he who opposes secret, oath-bound poli- 
.^^ tical societies, against Know Nothingism. The one votes for freedom, the other 
\jor tyranny. Every voter, then, should stop and consider well before he casts 
his influence at the ballot box in favor of such organizations ; for, when schism, 
persecution, anarchy and bloodshed result, it will be a poor excuse to say, " I 
misunderstood the object of my vote." Let them remember that eternal vigi- 
lance is the price of liberty, and that freemen should always be on their guard 
for fear of being carried away by appearances, and thereby bring ruin and de- 
struction upon this happy land. For the old Whig party every one entertained 
the highest opinion. It was a noble foe — open, bold, generous and national — 
a party consecrated to history by the immortal minds of Hamilton, (a foreign- 
er,) Clay, Webster, and others no less distinguished in war or in peace. This 
party is no longer in existence — the Know Notliingi^ have ddihcralely murdered 
'it in cold blood, and desecrated the tombs of Clay and other great leaders of 
the popular mind. Know Nothingism has swallowed it up in its all-capacious 
and devouring maw. What say the AVhigs of 1840 ? What say the Clay, 
the Webster, the Fillmore Whigs ? Where are those Whigs who have repeat- 
edly declared they " would be Whigs as long as they lived ?" Oh, consistency 
is a jewel ; and, to preserve your consistency, you cannot forsake your old party. 
But you join the Know Nothings. Then, you have forsaken your old party, or 
recognize in this new secret society the former Whig party. Which ? There 
is a number of Whigs, who, if they knew that their old party had become 
metamorphosed into this new party, would despise the very name of Know 
Nothingism as long as they lived. 

The great contest, then, hereafter, in the country, will be between the Dem- 
ocratic party and the Know Nothing organization. The old Whig party will 
divide between the two — some going one way, and some another. I propose to 
give a short expose of the principles and condition of the two leading parties, 
and, at the same time, showing wherein they differ, and wherein they agree. 

. KNOW NOTHINGISM VERSUS THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY. 

The true origin of this Know Nothing party is, of course, unknown ; but, I 
presume, there is no doubt of its having been born among the abolition and 
corruption of the North, aided by disappointed office-seekers, who wished a pro- 
motion to some office in the country. However, the place of its birth is of no 
importance. It is enough to know its principles, its objects, its workings and 
its fruits, and, from these, we can judge of its character and destiny. Of the 
Democratic party, the whole country understands its principles, and knows 
perfectly well what it has done ; and its proud achievements are marked on the 
map, and its glory bounded by the glory of the country. What a difference 
between the two ! Look at the contrast ! The last is open, bold and fearless 
in all it does and thinks \ the first, secret, timid and fearful. The one discus- 
ses the important matters of State before the world, the other plots where none 
can sec or hQar. The one unbosoms itself to its foe, and challenges refutation 
and argument before the sovereign voters of the land ; the otlier, like a snake 
in the grass, is sly, sneaking and cunning, watching a favorable opportunity to 
leap upon its adversary, and do it a fatal injury by inflicting its poisonous fang. 
The acts and views of the one are open for attack from any quarter ; the other, 
conscious of its weakness, binds its members under sacrilegious oaths not to 



207 



"N 



disclose its proceedings to the public. Tbc one is an open, bold, independent 
foe ; the other crouches, sneaks and deceives. Which do you prefer? 
,-— But I object to the Know Nothing party — . — '■ 

i^/r.sV. Because I believe, it contrari/ to tJie sp!r!t of the Constitntion. What 
says the Constitution ? What says the Know Nothing Constitution ? Let us 
compare them : 



Constitntion of the United States. 

Art. YI. No religious test shall ever 
be required as a qualification for an]/ 
office of public trust under this govern- 
ment. 

Constitution of Virf/inia. 
Sec. XV. " No man shall be com- 
pelled' to frequent or support any re- 
ligious worship, place or ministry 
whatever ; nor shall any man be en- 
forced or restrained, molested or bur- 
thened in his body or goods, or otlier- 
icise suffer, on account of his religious 
opinion or belief; but all men shall be 
free to profess, and by argument to 
maintain, their opinions in matters of 
religion, and the same shall in no 
WISE affect, diminish or enlarge 

THEIR CIVIL CAPACITIES." 



Know Nothing Constitution. 
Art. III. "The object of this or- 
ganization shall be to resist the insid- 
ious policy of the Church of Rome, 
and other foreign influences against the 
institutions of the country, hi/ jilacing 
in all offices in the gift of the people^ 
or hi/ appointment, none hut native 
horn Protestant citizens." 

Know Nothing oath. 
"You furthermore promise and de- 
clare that you will not vote nor give 
your influence for any man for any of- 
fice in the gift of the people, unless 
he be an American born citizen, ia 
favor of Americans ruling America, 

NOR IF he EB a HoMAN CaTUOLIC." 

Again : " You solemnly and sincere- 
ly swear, that if it may be done legally, 
you will, when elected to any office, 
remove all foreigners and Rojian Ca- 
tholics FROM office ; and that you 
will in no case appoint slcii to 
office." 



The direct and irreconcilable antagonism between the Federal and State Con- 
stitutions and the Constitution and Ritual of Know Nothingism is palpable to 
the plainest understanding. The objects and declarations of this Order conflict 
not only with the abstract principles, but with the actual provisions of the go- 
vernment. Know Nothingism does prescribe a religious test as a qualification 
to office. Know Nothingism does molest and burthen men, and does diminish 
their civil capacities on account of their religion. 

For this Teason, then, I object to the Know Nothing party. 

Second. I object to the Know Nothing j^art]/ because of its Oaths. I had al- 
ways thought it clearly established that extra judicial oaths were anti republi- 
can, anti scriptural, unchristian and opposed alike to sound policy and law, hu- 
man and divine. The great Author of the Christian religion has said, "swear 
not at all, neither by heaven, nor by the earth, nor by thy own head, for thou 
canst not make one hair white or black ; but let your communication be yea, 
yea; nay, nay : for tchateoever is more than this cometh of evil." Learned di- 
vines and commentators of every persuasion concur in interpreting this passage 
as a complete prohibition of all voluntary oaths, and in placing those who deli- 
berately take an oath, except under the authority of the State or Church, upon 
the same footing with profane swearers and blasphemers. Why have oaths? 
Is it because you believe every person prone to tell a falsehood, and you wish to 
prevent it. It is a solemn thing to take an oath. And it has long been dis- 
cussed whether, in a court of justice even, oaths were not contrary to the divine 



208 P 

law. If Uicrc is a doubt here, surely every individual should be exceedingly 
careful how he swore in unimportant matters, or in matters where there is no 
necessity for oaths. Is not marriage a solemn, important and binding institu- 
tion ? Why are not oaths admiiiistured here '/ — for the simple reason, they are 
unscrq^tiwai. Is not the right of baptism, joining the church, and ordination 
of ministers, serious and important acts ? Wliy are not oaths required here ? — 
for the simple reason, they are unscripUiral. Is the reader aware that courts of 
■justice in our land have already decided that a Know Nothing is an incompe- 
tent juror to try the life of a Catholic foreigner, and this because of the oath 
that the Know Nothing organization imposes upon its members. Is it possible 
that this is true — that the oath of a Know Nothing prevents him from doing 
justice to a fellow being ? And is this the organization that ministers of the 
gospel defend? Is this the party that is to rule our country? Gov. Yv'right, 
of Indiana, left the Methodist church because the man sent to minister to him 
in 7to/y things was a Kqow Nothing. Do you blame him? When the clergy 
begin to turn Know Nothings, they will find many more of their flock who will 
turn their backs, not upon the House of God, hut upon the jn'ustituiion of the 
jinlpit. 

Thirdli/. I olijert to the Know Notlihiij party hccatisir. of its secrecy. Why 
secret? Would you be ashamed for the acts and proceedings of your meetings 
to be exhibited before the .scrutinizing gaze of the world? If so, you acknow- 
ledge error and shame for your conduct. Do you wish, and is it the object of 
the organization to break down the Democratic party ? If so, you should ac- 
knowledge it, and not declare otherwise to the candid world, for this is gross 
deception. I,s your object spoils or self-promotion ? If so, you are corrupt. 
Is it your object to purify and purge the politics of the day, and to defeat ras- 
cality and demagogueism ? If so, your object is good, but you will find it a 
hard task. The Democratic party has tried to do this, and has only partially 
succeeded. The W^hig party could not do it. And how do you expect to ac- 
complish such a work^ If you claim the power to alter the human heart and 
passions, and can succeed in doing so, you will do more than the Christian reli- 
\^ gion itself can do after many centuries hard labor. You can try to prevent it; 
Vo does the Democratic party /;•_// to prevent them both. Man is ntill man 
wherever you find him, and wherever you find him there you will find both 
"demagogueism and rascality." I presume the Know Nothings are men; if 
so, you will find as many demarrogues, ofSce seekers and rascals among them as 
in any other party, and pjrobably more, for they have left the Democratic party 
and joined the new party, believing it icill soon have the " loaves and fishes" 
to distribute. It is true, the Know Nothings may try to prevent these evils; 
but if they say they can, they arc superior to the Christian religion, and they 
can perform works of supererogation. Wherever man is, there is corruption, 
vice, intrigue and rascality. W'hat all-seeing Jupiter have these Kno% Nutl)iugs 
found who can tell at first view whether u man is a demagogue or not? \Vhat 
crucible, what purifying process have they, through which a man passes and 
then comes forth pure, incorruptible and undefiled ? It is sheer nonsense to 
claim such a power. But Vr'hy did you join them ? Are you an oiBce seeker? 
Then always " acknowledge the corn." Did you join from curiosity? Your 
motive then was wrong, and, being satisfied, you .should immediately amend 
jour act. Did you join without duly considering its aim and tendency upon 
our Constitution, our rights, or interests? — or without fairly considering its ef- 
fects, its acts or its fruits? If so, you are still wrong, and have allowed some 
one blessed (or rather cursed) with a little gift uf gab to take advantage of 
your ignorance and weakness. How do you know that this has not been di ne 
in your case merely for the purpose of electing some demagogue to office, tbive 
you joined them to secure your election to Congress, ihe Legislature, magistracy, 
clerkship, constablcship, or to be elected as a director, steward, collector, treasu- 



209 

rer, or to any office of any kind? Then always pi-oclaim it openly and boldly, 
and never say again you intend to put down demagogues or offire. seekers. This 
is corruption per se. There is not one in the Know Nothing organization who 
will say or acknowledge that he is an office seeker; yet we confidently believe 
there are more office seekers, and more corruption inside the pale of this party 
than out of it, including all classes, of all ages. 

}3ut why so secret? Is it because you fear that great disgrace and ignominy 
will hereafter cluster around the very name of Know Nothing? Ah! this is 
the true secret of all the secrecy of this secret organization. Well, I am in- 
clined to think with you, and by all means enjoin secrecy, profound secrecy, to 
save the good name in after years. There is a difference between the secrecy of 
Know Nothings and those meetings usually called " caucuses." About the pro- 
ceedings of the first you c:in find out noting; in the case of caucuses, any 
member will tell what was done, and, indeed, the entire proceedings are usually 
published. In the first case, the secre y continues^ in the last, it is temporary, 
and its acts in a short time are known to the world. There is also a marked dis- 
tinction between Know Nothingism on the one hand, and Masonry or Odd Fel- 
lowship on the other. The first is political, the last arc not. What is done in- 
side the first very materially affects the " outsider," by throwing him out of 
office. What is plotted, planned, and done inside the Know Nothings af- 
fects materially the wishes and rights of him who does not belong to the orga- 
nization. Do you not thrust him out of office, and this, too, when he may be 
dependent upon the very proceeds and profits of this office for daily sustenance 
for liimself and family ? Is not this hard ? When he meets you in the street 
and shakes you warmly by the hand, he places his confidence in your friendship, 
while all the time you may be connected with a secret organization aiding to de- 
prive him of his office, and consequently of his daily supplies of food and clo- 
thing. Does not this tend to engender ill feelings in society, in the same fami- 
ly, and to lessen tho confidence of man in bis fellow man ? In Odd Fellowship 
you do not do this, but exactly the reverse, for you aim in this organization tO' 
benefit and help your friend. How can you then 

" Carry smiles and sunsliine on your face 
When discontent sits heavy at your heart?" 

Fourth. I ohjcct to the Know Nothhgx hrcause of their opposition to the 
Catholics. It is something remarkable that the "basis principles of the Ame- 
rican party," as published and scattered throughout this State, does not even 
mention the Catholic Church. Thus the onli/ Know N'tAhimj principle in the 
whole platform is left entirely out of the question, unless it was intended to be 
inferred from the fourth article. And is it possible that this mighty bugbear 
to the country — this very subject of Catholicism, about which they are cnutin- 
ually gabbing — this only fundamental principle of the party — is left onli/ to he 
inferred from the plat form ? Why was not the opposition to the Catholics ex- 
pressly laid down in broad terms? This anti-Catholic resolution (as I infer 
from the last part,) is the onh/ plauk, the onlij principle, that the Know Noth- 
ings can claim as exclusive property. Who ever heard of a party with one. 
principle before this organization was hatched from Abolition spawn? ])ut to 
the point. This opposition to a religious sect is inconsistent with the spirit of 
Christianity, the genius of our government, and the spirit of our institutions. 
It is assuming the Bible cannot work out its own destiny. It is setting up au 
earthly tribunal to pass sentence upon an individual's religious opinions. It is 
the same spirit of intolerance that lit the fires of Smithfield, and that brotight 
many to a speedy death under the executioner's axe in the reign of Protcstavt 
Elizabeth and the French Revolution of '89. Opposition to a religious sect 
but tends to increase its strength, and calls from it a more determined resisti-nce.. 
The sympathies of all are, more or less, on the side of the persecuted. It should 



210 

be remembered too, that this same Pope, concerning whom so much is said, has 
to keep a foreign army around him to prevent his own Catholic subjects from 
dethroning him ; and yet the cry is, " the power of the Pope." England, of 
all other countries, should fear the Pope, if he does assume the right to alter 
governments or dethrone kings; and yet, England has tried to disfranchise the 
Catholics in the realm. She has done so, but after several years' experience 
she came to the conclusion that the Catholics were as good citizens as the Pro- 
testants ; and upon bringing the Emancipation Bill before Parliament, the 
ablest Protestants in both houses advocated its passage, and by a large majority 
the Catholic subjects were relieved of their civil disabilities. On this occasion 
the Catholic religion underwent the severest scrutiny. The committee on the 
part of Parliament summoned a large number of Catholic priests, professors in 
colleges, and intelligent lay membirs, before them, by whom the temporal or 
civil power of the Pope was absolutely denied. Alexander Pope, the poet, and 
a Catholic by profession, also denied it. The Pope himself was written to, and 
he denied it as being a part of the Catholic creed. A few days since Mr. 
Chandler, in Congress, whom the National IntelUcjencer last year considered a 
man of the highest character, also denied it upon the floor of Congress, and 
read extracts from many Citholic works, conclusively showing that they do not 
recognize it as a part of their creed to interfere with matters of government. 

But suppose the Catholics do advocate the union of Church and State, and 
that they are trying to get possession of this country. The idea is still whim- 
sical and absurd. Tliis country was discovered in 1492, and at that time there 
was neither a Catholic nor Protestant in the country. At present (1855) the 
population of the country is 24,000,000. Drop 4,000,000 for slaves, and we 
still have 20,000,000 of whites. There are 1,570,000 Catholics in the country, 
which, taken from the 20,000,000, loaves over 18,000,000 of anti-Catholics, or 
those opposed to the Catholics. Since the discovery of the country to the present 
time, 365 years have passed. Then, in 365 years, the Protestants or anti-Catholics 
have increased to 18,000,000, and the Catholics to only 1,500,000. If then, they 
continue to increase in the same ratio, 365 years hence there will be 36,000,000 
of people opposed to the Catholic Church, and only 3,500,000 of Catholics. 
Do the Know Nothings fear the Catholics when, in tlirce hundred and sixfi/-five 
years hence, the Catholics will number only 3,500,000, and the anti-Catholics, 
or those opposed to the Catholic Church, will amount to the enormous sum of 
thirti/-six millions? These facts might be enlarged on, but we deem them suf- 
ficient. 

Fifth. — I am opposed to the Know Nothings because they have a party with 
only one p)rincip)h, and that an ohjcctiunahle principle. As before remarked, 
this Catholic question is the only principle of this new party, and this, I en- 
deavoured to show in the last paragraph, was utterly untenable and whimsical, 
as well as unchristian and anti-republican. In regard to the other resolutions 
laid down in their platform, they are either assumed or borrowed from other 
parties, and the Know Nothings have no right to claim them as exclusive pro- 
perty. For instance, take the sixth, which reads thus : 

*< That the Bible in the hands of every free citizen is the only permanent 
basis of true liberty and genuine equality." 

Have the Know Nothings a right to claim this, and say that every other party 
denies the happy influence of the Bible on "liberty and genuine equality.'' It 
cannot be a principle solely their's until some other party denies it ; for, if both 
parties adopt it and claim its utility, it is a principle of both parties — common 
to both — and neither hns the exclusive right of property. Now, I would ask, 
when did the Democratic party ever object to or deny this principle ? Why it 
has never been denied by the Democratic party at all ; but this party looking 
upon it as a common principle, has never thought proper to incorporate it in its 



211 

platform, no more than a resolution that "every master should rule his 
slave, and tluit the slave should not rule the master ;" or that " a man can look 
upon the sky or his wife if he chooses." These, too, would be gdod principles, 
but they are the principles common to every freeman. But, again, I should 
like to know how it is tliat the members of the Know Nothing order care more 
about the l^ible than other persons, outside of the organization, who have al- 
ways been members of the Church. Irreligious skeptics inside the organization, 
and some of whom are regardless of the Bible, and yet they care more about it 
than an outsider of some (Iliristian persuasion. No; the truth is this : it is as 
much one party's principle as the other's — as much Whig or Democratic as 
Know Nothing, and as much mine as their's. 

So it is with other principles in the platform. They do not belong to the 
Know Nothing any more than to the Democratic party. Some of them, indeed, 
arc taken from the Democratic creed. As, for instance, " religious freedom/' 
and " State llights." Who wrote the celebrated act of religious freedom in 
Virginia ? Tbe father of the Democratic party. Whicli party has for years 
been struggling for the true docirine of State Rights? The Democratic party. 
Each article in the platform may be discussed in th« same way. As to 
"availability. Red Republicanism, demagogueism, and corruption," — the 
Democratic party has been trying to prevent these evils, and as the people 
become more enlightened and virtuous, we may expect a reform, and not until 
then. These evils are already festering like an ulcer upon the face of Know 
Nothingism. As regards the " ?io»-union of Church and State, the doctrine of 
State Rights, and the education of the people," — they form a part of the Dem- 
ocratic creed and practice, and always have. Indeed, on some of these points 
the platform is objectionable, because it does not go far cnowjli, and is not 
sufficiently es'^Waxt for good and genuine Democracy. Why, then, join a secret 
organization under sacreligious oaths ? Why dodge around the corners at night 
or run across the streets through the nmJ, to avoid being seen on council 
nights ? This is noble, highborn and chivalrous. Is it not ? This, no doubt, 
is one of the beauties of Know Nothing ism. What you do, do openly and 
above board like a man. 

In regard to foreigners and the voting laws, two-thirds of the Know Nothings 
disagree with their platform ; — some want 21 years previous residence, and 
some 14, and some wish to keep foreigners out of the country altogether. 
Upon this subject members of the Democratic party also differ — some for 21 
years, some for 14, some for 10, and some prefer that the foreigner should be 
allowed to vote, but not hold office ; still the party is willing to discuss the sub- 
ject before the people on the hustings and in our legislative halls, and as the 
majority of the people think best, they are willing to sanction. Here I must 
be more explicit. Naturalization merely confers the right of transmitting 
property, serving on jury, sue and be sued, and the pledge on the part of the 
government fur protection." I presume no one will say that the honest and 
good foreigner should not be naturalized for 21 years. This would be cruel 
and unhumane. Five years previous residence should entitle him to the rights 
of naturalization. This right of passing " a uniform rule of naturalization" 
belongs to Congress, though the States sometimes confer upon a foreigner some 
of the privileges of naturalization even before he has been naturalized by Con- 
gress. But, in regard to the voting power, this is granted only by the terms of 
tbe constitution in our State, and, to alter the law, a convention must be held 
and tbe constitution altered. I claim to be a Democrat in tbe strict sense of 
the word, and yet I would favor a law of this kind ! " Five years previous resi- 
dence should be required before the rights of naturalization should be conferred 
on a foreigner. He should not be allowed to vote at all unless he came to this 
country before he was 21 years of age; and those who came before that age 
should be required 14 years previous residence." I take 14 as a compromise 



212 

between 7 and zl, and tbink that a sufficient length of time. On this point 
some Democrats may agree with me and some disagree, and they, like myself, 
are willing to leave the whole subject open for discussion before the people, and 
for their action. This question of naturalization and voting is a question of 
expediency, and is similar to the one agitated io the late Heform Convention, 
by both AVhigs and Democrats. I mean "white and mixed basis." It was a 
question for the people, and not a party issue, for the simple reason that dif- 
ferent individu-tls entertained difierent views on the subject in the same party. 

fSixlh. — I object to Know Nothingism because it piactices a general system 
of deception in the community. I have long since determined never to ask a 
man, " are you a Know Nothing ?" unless I am quite certain he does not belong 
to the council. And for this reason, that if he does belong to them, he will 
reply, "I don't know anything about them," or some other similar equivocal 
expression, which I regard as contrary to the principles of honor and the Bible; 
and the individual who does thus equivocate commits a knoum positive sin. 
When asked the question, the Know Nothing well knows my meaning, and by 
equivocating he emphatically deceives me ; and what is deception ? Answer it 
in your consciences. 1 dare assert it, as my opinion, that few persons who do 
cot belong to this new party ever believe one word another says in regard to 
the Know Nothings, even if the Know Nothing belongs to the Church. This 
is hard, but it is true, as the reader well knows. I regret it. 

This position might be fortified by scriptural quotations, and by extracts from 
learned writers on the subject, but it would take up too much space. One 
sentence, however, from Dr. Wayland, who says : 

"The obligation to veracity does not depend upon the right of the inquirer 
to Enow the truth. Did our obligation depend upon this, it would vary with 
every person with whom we conversed ; and in every case, before speaking, wo 
should be at liberty t.o measure the extent of our neiglibor's right, and to tell 
him the truth or falsehood accordingly. You cannot do that which God has 
forbidden." 

Members of the church especially should guard themselves. I do not believe 
that the Know Nothings intend wrong, but in the exciiement of party spirit 
a.nd useless enthusiasm, they have overlooked this point. A word to the wise 
is sufficient. 

.Seventh. — I object to Know Nothingism because it prevents a free exercise 
of votiur;. The elective franchise is the birthright of freemen. Its free and 
■unrestrained use is the palladium and only security to our liberties and institu- 
tions. Control the ballot bos by oaths, and you promote chicane, abolition, and 
deraagOirueism by oaths. It has been acknowledged by members of the Know 
Nothing organization, that if a nominee is made by the parry they are com- 
pelled to vote for him or not vote at all — any how, I presume, they arc bound 
by oaths, if they do vote, to vote for a Know Nothing. They cannot vote for 
an outsider, even if lie sustains the platform. Does this not restrict the free 
exercise of the voting pov,'er ? The only way a Know Nothing can be inde- 
pendent in his vote is to leave the organization. When the great security of 
our liberties is thus restrained, who does not fear the ultimate result? The sea 
may be quiet and calm now, the breezes fair, the prospect bright and beautiful, 
'•7et take care, that in the last effort to strike the harbor, already in view, the 
gallant vessel does not go down the fearful abyss, dragging with it death and 
destruction. 

Ei'jliih. — I object to Know Nothingism because of its " fruits." By their 
fruits ye shall know them. What are tlie fruits '{ Abolition and Proscription. 
The Know Nothings triumphed in Massachusetts. What was the consequeuce ? 
The Governor swears eternal enmity to the South, and regards " papacy and 
slavery" the two evils which this new i>arty is bent to exterminate. The Leg- 



213 

islaturc of this State clecterl Henry Wilson to the U. S. Senate, wlio says he 
looks forward with a hope, that soon the " sun will rise on the last master and 
Bet on the last slave." In Michigan, Wisconsin, Delaware, Pennsylvania and 
Illinois, where this new party was successful, what has been the result? Abo- 
lition, Freesoil, anti-Nebraska men have been elected, and the Governors recom- 
mending to the Legislatures in their messages eternal hatred and opposition to 
the South. We know of no man who has been elected at the North by this 
new party, unless he first proclaimed himself determined to oppose the extension 
of slavery and the rights of the South. They are turning out of office the con- 
servative men, and placing in their stead the rankest Freesoilers. But what is 
very objectionable in this new party, is the fact that they are bound by oaths 
cither to support the nominee for the Presidency or withdraw from the party. 
Take care that this feature of being bound by oaths is not an Abolition trap to 
abolitiouize the South, or sever in pieces the Union of the States. I believe 
the Know Nothings of the South will go with the South, but are they not giv- 
ing their influence to an organization which, at the North, is pledged against 
the South, by strong and binding oaths r' How do you not know that this system 
of oaths was not devised for the express purpose of binding together the Abo- 
lition vote of the North? If so, farewell, a long farewell, to the Union— to 
the glory of this great nation. 

^7„</i. — I object to the Know Nothing party because of its corruption and 
denifujo/fueism. It is a well known fact, that all the disappointed office-seekers, 
dema<'Ogues, and corrupt politicians of the Democratic party, have joined this 
new org°nization, for the purpose of spoils or self-promotion. Of course the 
Know Nothings did not know it at the time, for they would not tell their ob- 
ject, and it was impossible for the " incorruptible" party to see a man's motives 
or secret intents. The transfer of disaffected Democrats to the secret invinci- 
bles is of daily occurrence, and when they do get a Democrat in their council 
they rejoice over him as over a "lost sheep." But what does the Democratic 
party think of such men ? liead the following from the Lynchburg Rqmbli- 
can : 

" J. M. H. Beale. — We see extracts from a letter of this individual going 
the rounds of the press. Mr. Beale was once a Democratic member of Con- 
gress. His career in that body was so obscure that we never heard or saw any- 
thing about it, except that he went off from the South on the Compromise, and 
was suspected of being in the same category with Foote, Cobb, and other spa- 
vined patriots. We suppose that the true explanation of his Know Nothing 
proclivitie«, as with every other politician, is, that finding himself unable to 
get office in the regular way, he is willing to identify himself with any organi- 
zation which promises to gratify his weak ambition and inordinate vanity. All 
of these " one idea" excitements are beneficial to the Democratic party, in pro- 
ducing the self-destruction of such weak and selfish members as Mr. Beale, and 
ridding the party of their annoyances. For one, we are glad to see such cha- 
racters as Mr. Beale saving the Democratic party the necessity of killing them, 
by killing themselves. We have always thought that persons whose execution 
was necessary, should be allowed the privilege of suicide." 

I have thus hastily given some reasons why I object to the Know Nothing 
orc^anization — an organization with no fixed principles, and destined to do more 
harm than all the corruption and trickery of demagogues. I do fear it. Not 
as an individual, but as a citizen. I do not fear the individual members, but I 
fear the result of the secret oath-bound political society that unites them. I 
have no doubt of the patriotism, of the honor, of the integrity of most of its 
members ; but they are deceived, and are using means to effect ends which may 
result in a universal vortex of destruction to the country, and to the peace and 
security of our firesides and homes. But in this dark political storm through 



214 

■whicli our country is now passing, our trust is in the integrity, purity, conser- 
vatism and nationality of the Danocrutic party, la hoc sijiw vinces. 

Having given nine good reasons why 1 am not a Know Nothing, I propose 
now to give twelve good reasons for the " Faith that is in us." 

THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY, 

This is an old, settled, national, conservative party, that has boldly stood by 
the Constitution for a series of years, and repeatedly saved the country, when 
threatened with destruction by opposing principles. Its policy, its aims, its ob- 
jects, its acts, stand out in gl-and relief to the gaze of an admiring world. Its 
principles are fixed, and have been well tested by the people of the country. 
It is open, bold and independent, and crouches before no foe, nor acknowledges 
any superior opponent. But why favor this party ? In stating my reasons un- 
der this head, I shall say but little by way of explanation, as this party is well 
known and all its principles have been thoroughly discussed before the people, 
through the press and in the halls of State. 
I favor the Democratic party — 
I^irst. — Because it is not secret. 

Sfcond. — Because it does not bind its members by sacrilegious oaths. 
Third. — Because it is in favor of " Religious toleration," and does not pro- 
scribe the Catholic or any other Church. Thomas Jefferson wrote the celebrated 
act of religious toleration upon the statute book of the State. 

Fourth. — Because it supports the Constitutions of the land, and is not con- 
trary to their spirit. 

Fifth. — Because it has many great national principles, and is not a " one 
principle party." 

Sixth. — Because it does not practice a general system of deception in the 
country. 

Seventh. — Because it does not prevent a free and unrestrained use of the 
elective franchise. 

Eiijhth. — Because of its glorious '' fruits." The Democratic party has en- 
larged this country from thirteen original colonies to thirty-one independent 
States; and increased its population from four millions to twenty-four millions. 
Under the guidance of its principles, commerce, the arts, raani.factureF, education 
and Christianity have flourished. 

Ninth. — Because it is now the purest party, and has in its pale less corruption 
and demagogueism. The Know Nothing excitement is but a political tornado 
to purify and purge this good old national party. 

Tenth. — Because it opposes the union of Church and State ; and not only the 
Catholic, but any other Church whatever may be its creed. This fact no Demo- 
crat will deny. 

Eleventh. — Because it believes in and has established the doctrine of State 
Bights, although for a long time bitterly opposed by another party. The Dem- 
ocratic party struggled for years to confirm this cherished principle upon the 
minds of the people. 

Twelfth. — Because it believes '' that the Bible in the hands of every free 
citizen is the only true basis of liberty and genuine e(iuality." And by this is 
meant, not to force the Bible on any one, but that the party believes in the 
happy influences of the Bible on liberty and its grand llepubliean tendency. 

Thirteenth. — Because it favors and fosters education — the education of the 
masses " as necessary to the right use and continuance of our liberties." 

Fourteenth. — Because its members are not ashamed to own that they belong 
to the party, but are proud of the cognomen of " Democrats." 

Fifteenth. — Because it is a party proud of its origin, proud of its achieve- 
ments, proud of its men, proud of its glory, proud of its history, and proud to 



215 

know tb:it it is able and will crush . to earth the Know Nothing Ilydra, and 
forever remain the invincible defender of the Constitution, the rights of the 
States and the rights of the people. 

In laying down these principles I have omitted the great, fundamental and 
long-contested doctrines of the party, such as Free Trade, anti-Bank, &c., for 
the reader is no doubt well conversant with these leading principles. This, 
then, is a party intimately interwoven with our country's history, and can pre- 
sent a long list of great, national principles. 

MADISON. 



The following communication, which appeared in the Richmond Enquirer 
of the 19th of March, was subsequently published in pamphlet form, and 
justly regarded as one of the most able and useful documents of the cam- 
paign : 

" All states that are liberal of naturalization towards foreigners are fit for 
empire. The Roman plant was removed into the soil of other nations. It 
was not the Romans that spread upon the world, but it was the world that 
spread upon the Romans — and that was the sure way of greatness." — [1 Lord 
Byron's Works, 37. 

Messrs. Editors : — The present canvass in Virginia involves considerations 
of the uttermost moment. In the course of my researches into one of the 
most prominent issues presented, I have fallen upon some facts which I have 
not seen presented anywhere, and which may be of utility to the people. I 
have not the time now to elaborate the suggestions which may be made. My 
object is to present a manual of authorities for the campaign — authorities 
which may not be acces.^ible in many parts of the commonwealth. I shall 
be content, therefore, with the mere presentations of many points, with the 
proof on which they ara^based, leaving out any obvious reflections of my 
own. 

My first position is, that the whole scope, end and aim of the new organi- 
zation of Protestant Jesuits in this country, for the abolishment of the laws 
in regard to naturalizalion, and the exclusion of all foreigners and Roman 
Catholics from office, is, instead of an American, essentially a British idea. 
All its principles are borrowed from Britain, There is not an original plank 
of native growth in the whole platform. 

What are their principles, as published in the Know-Nothing and Ameri- 
can Crusader, at Boston ? 

1. " Repeal of all naturalization laws." 

2. "None but native Americans and Protestants for office." 

3. "War to the hilt on Romanism." 

4. "The amplest protection to Protestant interests." 

5. " Citizenship granted to foreigners only by special act of Congress." 

6. " The doctrines of the revered Washington and his compatriots." 
These, for the present, will suffice. Now, whence are these doctrines 

derived ? 

In England, naturalization cannot be performed but by act of Parliament. 
The applicant must reside 14 years in the country, and present proof of his 
good character. The whole doctrine of perpetual allegiance is an English 
doctrine. Expatriation is an American doctrine. It was this impulse which 
first peopled thi.s continent. Our ancestors claimed the right to enter the social 
compact wherever their own feelings should dictate, and their own views of 
personal aggrandizement or enjoyment would be best promoted. In this way 



216 

they established a premium for good government exceedingly beneficial to 
the whole human race. The intelligent and enterpris^ing in every depart- 
ment of life found less difficulty in offering their allegiance to that state which 
would afford them the best piotection in the enjoyment of the fruits of their 
talents and industry. The admission of such a principle into the general 
policy of nations did not militate against the real welfare of any, because 
the great mass of mankind were still held by those bonds to their native soil, 
which exist among every people, and strengthen from day to day in the vari- 
ous relations of kindred : friends, countrymen and community of interests. 
At the same time it afforded a facility to tliose who felt that- their exertions 
might be successfully prosecuted, and would be better appreciated and re- 
warded in distant climes, to withdraw from the country in which their ener- 
gies have no free scope and adequate encouragement. It was thus the 
general amelioration of mankind was most effectually promoted. [Black- 
stone, 27b'.] The proposition now is to abandon this whole doctrirje — to 
destroy this great American 'example, and .go back to English policy — to the 
jealousies and exclusions which always exist among barbarous nations, to the 
narrow and illiberal systems of China and Japan. 

But, as if this was not enough, the proposition goes still further, and all 
the prejudices, all the enmity, all the machinery of the Orangeman in Great 
Britain must be palmed off upon our people as Americani I wish I had 
time to go into a full investigation of this matter. It presents a most invit- 
ing field, but I can only give it to you in glimpses. 

In England there is a union of church and state. After the establish- 
ment of the church of England under Henry the Eighth, the whole object 
of'Parliament was to enforce uniformity to the faith of the kingdom. Penal 
statutes were directed, not only against Eoman Catholics, but against all dis- 
senters from the Church of England. These are all given at large in Hallam's 
Constitutional History, but I will refer now only to those in regard to Catho- 
lics. They were deprived of all means of educating their children, at home 
or abroad. They could not be guardians to their own or other persons' child- 
ren. They were all disarmed. The priests were-*Jl banished. The holiest 
feelings of nature were outraged ; the son was turned against his father. 
Any son of a Catholic who would turn Protestant succeeded to the family 
estate. From that moment it could not be sold, or charged with debt or 
legacy. A child who turned Protestant was taken from the father and the 
mother, no matter how young, and given to a Protestant relation. No Pro- 
testant could marry a Catholic. No Catholic could ])urchase or lease land 
for more than thirty-one years. If the profits of the land amounted to a rate 
above that fixed by law, the farm belo'nged to the first Protestant who made 
the discover3\ No Catholic could hold any office of trust, honor, profit or 
emolument. He could not vote. A Catholic's wife who turned Protestant 
had an increase of jointure. No Catholic could keep a school. Catholic 
priests who turned Protestants received $1.50 a year from the kingdom for life. 
A reward of $ 2.50 was provided for the discovery of a Catholic bishop, and 
$100 for a Catholic priest! Any justice of the peace could compel a Cath- 
olic above 18 years of age to reveal the hiding-place of any priest, where 
mass was celebrated, where schools were kept. On refusal to answer, he 
was imprisoned for a year. Nobody could act as a trustee for a Catholic. 
No Catholic could be a juror. No Catholic could take more than two ap- 
prentices, except in Ireland, in the linen trade. Popish horses could be 
taken for the militia and used without pay. No descendant of a Papist could 
vote without taking the oath of allegiance, taking the sacrament of the 
Lord's supper according to the Church of England, and renouncing the doc- 
trine of transubstantiation. No Catholic could be a lawyer. No lawyer 
could marry a Catholic without being considered one, and subject to all pen- 



217 

altles as such. No Catholic could marry a Protestant — any priest who cele- 
brated .such a marriag;e was hnnired! Instances are innumerable where the 
defendant has pleadtxl in a criminal trial that the deceased was an l^i^llman 
and a Catholic, and, therefore, he had a right to kill him. [Hallam, Sydney 
Smith, Howell's State Trials.] He was compelled to pay a tithe of all his 
products to support the Church of England. Every tenth potato belonged 
to a sect which first made him a slave and then a beggar. The sayers and 
hearers of mass, whether in public or private, were for the first olfence to 
suffer confiscation of all their goods, together with corporeal punishment, at 
the discretion of the magistrate. For the second offence they were to be 
banished. For the third they were to be hanged. John Knox, the great 
reformer of Scotland, inculcated as a most sacred duty, in 1564, incumbent 
on the civil government in the first instance, and if the civil government is 
remiss, incumbent on the people, to extirpate completely the opinions and 
worship of the Catholics, and even to massacre them, man, woman and 
child ! [Edinburgh Review, September 1826, page 167 ; Cook's Church of 
Scotland.] 

Of these monstrous provisions, Blackstone says, [2 Black. 58,] " If a time 
should ever arrive, when all fears of a pretender shall have vanished, and 
the power and influence of the Pope shall become feeble, ridiculous and des- 
picable, not only in England, but in every country of Europe; it probably 
then would not be amiss to review and soften these rigorous edicts — for it 
■ought not to be left in the breast of every merciless bigot to drag down the 
vengeance of these laws upon inoffensive though mistaken subjects, to the 
destruction of every principle of toleration and religious liberty." 

For four hundred years these disgraceful acts remained unrepealed. JVoio, 
England herself sees the folly, and her writers acknowledge the impolicy of 
them. In 1839, the last dyke which surrounded this infamous system was 
broken down by Catholic emancipation ; and now^ the Catholic, the Method- 
ist, the Presbyterian, all dissenting sects, even the Jews, have the honors of 
Parliament open to them. 

For six hundred years, united as she was in church and state, England 
tried the policy of exclusion. Many of the highest offices in the kingdom 
could be occupied alone by members of the established church. By the test 
act, all officers of state had to take the oath of allegiance, partake of the 
sacrament of tPle Lord's supper, and renounce the doctrine of transubstantia- 
tion. It excluded, not merely Catholics, but all dissenting sects. 

Under the assaults of the best and most gifted of her sons, these too fell. 
The language of the great Fox, on this subject, is so appropriate, that I 
must give it. He says, [Speech on the Test Act,] -'No human govern- 
ment has jurisdiction over opinions as such, and more particularly over re- 
ligious opinions. It had no right to presume that it knew them, and much 
less to act on that presumption. When opinions were productive of acts 
injurious to society, the law knew when and w^here to ajiply the remedy. If 
the reverse of this doctrine were adopted, if the actions of men were to be 
prejudged from their opinions, it would sow the seeds of everlasting jeal- 
ousy and mistrust; it would give the most unlimited scope to the malignant 
passions ; it would incite each man to divine the opinions of his neighbor, 
to deduce mischievous consequences from them, and ihcn to prove that he 
ought to incur disabilities, to be harrassed with penalties, and to be fettered 
with restrictions. From this intolerant principle had flowed every species 
of sectarian zeal; every system of political persecution ; every extravagance 
of religious hate. Let not Great Britain be the last to avail herself of the gen- 
eral improvement of the human understanding. Indulgence to other sects 
— a candid respect for their opinions — a desire to promote charity and good 
will — were the best proofs that any religion could give of its divine origin." 



218 

The test act was not repealed until 1828, notwithstanding all the efTorts ' 
made against it, and the beneficent influence of our exatnijle. The Orange 
lodges were composed of Protestants entirely. They were directed against 
the Catholics, and embodied in the organization all the prejudice and injus- 
tice comprehended in the test act itself, and in the penal laws against Cath- 
olics. They are the origin of the Know-Nothings, sons of the Supreme Or- 
der of the Star Spangled Banner, sons of the sires of 1776, or by whatever 
other name they may be designated. They were bound together by similar 
oaths to those which now bind their brethren in this country ; and while 
they are denouncing the Irish, and Ireland, they are guilty of stealing the 
very machinery by which they are held together, from another soil, — from 
Irish ingenuity and Irish bigotry. While they profess to be an American 
party — they are, in fact a foreign party, borrowing the very principles of 
their creed from those Ihey do bitterly denounce. They are, in truth, Jlmer- 
ican Orangemen, with the profession on their lips that none but Americans 
ought to rule America, when they themselves are ruled, governed, and sus- 
tained by a system of policy which was considered so dangerous, even to 
the liberties of the British subject, that these very Orange lodges were put 
down and suppressed by prohibitory and penal statutes in 1825, by the votes 
of a Protestant parliament. 

I have not the time now to go into details in regard to the Orangemen. 
The curioue in such matters may obtain full information form the history of 
the Rebellion in Ireland. I must, however, give one of their toasts, from 
which the character of the association, and the spirit which pervaded it, may 
be inferred. It was drank with great solemnity and joy, at civic feasts on 
the 1st day of July, the anniversary of the battle of the Boyne, every man 
kneeling as he repeated the words. They were put together in 1689. It 
ran thus: "The glorious, pious and immortal memory of the great and 
good King William, who saved us from Pope and Popery, brass money, and 
wooden shoes. He that won't drink his toast, may the north wind blow 
him to the south, and a west wind blow him to the east; may he havefa 
dark night, a lee shore, a rank storm, and a leaky vessel to carry him over 
the ferry to hell ; may the devil jump down his throat with a red hot har- 
xow, that every pin may tear out his inside; may he be jammed, rammed 
and damned into the great gun of Athlene, and fired off into the kitchen of 
hell, where the Pope is roasting on a spit, and the devil is pelting him with 
Cardinals." 

It was in an age and among a people where such laws were tolerated, 
and where such sentiments were indulged, not only towards Catholics, but 
towards all other non-conforming or dissenting sects, that our fathers first 
sought this land. The Puritans or Presbyterians found themselves hedged 
round with penalties quite as unjust as those which girt the Catholic like a 
belt of fire. Until the settlement and the revolution in this country, no na- 
tion seems to have had the least conception, or made the slightest advances, 
towards religious toleration. Even Bacon, far in advance of his age, as he 
was upon most subjects, contended that unless there was uniformity in the 
churches of the colonies with the creed of England, religion itself would be 
nugatory. He makes the relaxation of some laws a matter of expediency, 
to recover the hearts of the Irish, but loses sight of the great principle. — [2 
Bacon, 189.] 

Until the year 1836, to deny the doctrine of the Trinity was, by the Eng- 
lish law, a crime punishable with fine and imprisonment. Speculative wri- 
ters had indeed announced the idea of toleration, and among them as the 
first, Sir Thomas Moore, in his Utopia; but the suggestion had no response 
from the government. The prevailing idea, among all churchmen, was, 
that " liberty of conscience and toleration are things only to be talked of, 



219 

and pretended by those that are under; but none like or think it reasonable 
that arc in authoiity. 'Tis an instrument of mischief and dissettlement, 
to be courted by those who wouhi liavc change, but no way desirable by 
such as would be quiet, and have the government undisturbed." — [Quoted 3, 
Hallam'.s Cons. His. 232.] 

Tlie period then before the settlement on this continent was one of in- 
tense religious persecution throughout the whole of Great Britain. From 
the restoration to the year 1685, fifteen thousand families had been ruined 
by a refusal to conform to the established church, and for the same period, 
five thousand persons had died victims from imprisonment from the same 
cause. — [1 Neil's His. Puritans.] 

A state of things so utterly overwhelming naturally led to an investiga- 
tion of intellectual and spiritual rights; of the sanctity of conscience ; of 
all the responsibilities which are intrinsic and unborn — and from these flowed 
the external, but more ramified prerogatives and privileges which attach 
to and belong to the man. In 1604, three hundred Puritan ministers had 
been either silenced, imprisoned or exiled. That Virginia and some of the^ 
northern colonies did depart from the very principle which cut them off 
from the fatherland, is true; it was to have been expected; and perhaps 
to that very cause we may attribute, in some measure, the early assertion 
and mafhtenance of that freedom of religion and of conscience which has 
made this land the favored spot of all the world. It was reserved for the. 
Catholics to set the first example. Lord Baltimore, in November, 1632, 
founded his province on the broad basis of freedom of religion, and introduced 
into his fundamental policy tne doctrme of general toleration and equality 
among Christian sects. He does not appear to have gone further ; and we 
have thus given, says Judge Story, "The earliest example of a legislator in- 
viting his subjects to the free indulgence of religious opinion. This was an- 
terior to the settlement of Rhode Island, and therefore merits the enviable 
rank of being the first recognition among the colonists of the glorious and 
indefeasible rights of conscience. Rhode Island (in 1644) seems without 
any apparent consciousness of co-operation to have gone further, and to 
have protected an universal freedom of religious opinion in Jew and Gen- 
tile, in Christian and Pagan, without any distinction to be found in its legis- 
lation." — [1 Com. on Cons. 95.] 

It is needless, however, to multiply these details. It is suflicient now to 
say that American policy and principle created a broad division between all 
that was established in England. It was not toleration of sects which we 
encouraged, but it was perfect freedom of religion, perfect freedom of con- 
science. The man who was held responsible to God, and not to government 
— to eternal truths, not to evanescent laws. This, this is the true American 
principle. It constitutes our great characteristic as a people. Shall we 
abandon the American platform, and go back in the history of the human 
race four hundred years, to that very system of intolerance which England, 
herself, after a trial of centuries, has abandoned with every badge of 
infamy ? 

But let us pass on. The Declaration of Independence was declared, and 
among the grievances therein recited, we find it charged against the King of 
England, that "he has endeavored to prevent the population of these states ; 
for that purpose obstructing the laws for the naturalization of foreigners ; re- 
fusing to pass others encouraging their migration hitherto, and raising the 
conditions of new appropriation of lands." 

Mr. Madison, too, in enumerating the defects of the confederation, says : 
" Among the defet^ts severely felt was want of an uniformity in cases re- 
quiring it, as laws of naturalization and bankruptcy." — [2 Madison Pa- 
pers, 712.] 



220 

We have now come to the formation of the Federal Constitution. We 
can now consider what were "the doctrines of the revered Washington and 
his compatriots." Washington was the President of that Convention. His 
assent was given to the Constitution as it passed. 

B3' it the President and Vice President are required to be native-born 
citizens of the United States. There seems to have been no debate upon 
this proposition. 

A foreigner, however, is eligible to the House of Representatives, after 
being seven years a citizen ; and he is also eligible to the Senate after being 
one nine years. * 

In the debates which took place on the various propositions which were 
submitted before the clause was passed in its present shape, we shall see 
that ail those who were afterwards distinguished as Federalists announced 
themselves in favor of a policy as narrow and exclusive as that of Great 
Britain, in this as in ail other respects; while those who advocated a gen- 
erous system — an American system — were afterwards quite as much distin- 
guished in the adherence to Republican or Democratic principles. It is true 
parties were not then formed, but -we shall discern the seminal principle of 
those which divide (his country at this very hour, by whatever names called. 

Mr. Governeur Morris, (Fed.) — moved to insert fourteen years, instead of 
four years' citizenship, as a qualification for senators, urging the dangers of 
admittin'g strangers into our public councils. — [3 Mad. Papers, 1273, et seq.] 

Mr. Pinkney, (Federalist) — seconded him. As the senate is to have the 
power of making treaties and managing our foreign affairs, there is peculiar 
danger and impropriet}- in opening its door to those who have foreign attach- 
ments. 

Mr. Madison, (Republican) — was not averse to some restrictions on this sub- 
ject, but could never agree to the proposed amendment. Should the consti- 
tution have the intended effect of giving stability and reputation to our gov- 
ernment, great numbers of respectable Europeans, men who loved liberty 
and wished to partake its blessings, will be ready to transfer their fortunes 
hither. All such would feel the mortification of being marked with suspi- 
cious incapacities, though they should not covet the public honors. He was 
not apprehensive that any dangerous number of strangers would be appointed 
by the state legislatures, if they were left at liberty to do so; nor that for- 
eign powers would make use of strangers as instruments for their purposes. 

Mr. Butler, (Federalist) — Was decidedly opposed to the admission of for- 
eigners without a long residence in the country. They bring with them not 
only attachments to other countries, but ideas of government so distinct from 
ours, that in every point of view they are dangerous. He mentioned the 
great strictness observed in Great Britain on this Subject! 

Dr. Franklin, (Republican) Was not against a reasonable time, but 

should be very sorry to see anything like illiberality inserted in the Consti- 
tution. The people in Europe are f^iiendly to this country. We found, in 
the course of the revolution, that many strangers served us faithfully, and 
that many natives took part against their country. When foreigners, after 
looking about for some other country in which they can obtain more happi- 
ness, give preference to ours, it is a proof of attachment which ought to ex- 
cite our confidence and affection. 

Mr. Randolph, (Republican) — Never could agree to the motion for disa- 
bling foreigners for fourteen years from participating in the public honors. 
He reminded the Convention of the language held by our patriots during the 
revolution, and the principles laid down in all the American Constitutions. 
He would go as far as seven years, but no farther. 

Mr. Wilson, (Republican) — Said he rose with feelings which were per- 
haps peculiar, mentioning the circumstance of his not being a native, and 



2*21 

the possibility, if the ideas of some f^entlemen should be pursued, of his 
being incapacitated from hokliug a phice under the very Constitution which 
he had shared the trust of making. He remarked the iUiberal comjdexion 
which the motion woukl give tlie whole system, and the effect which a 
o-ood system would have ir» inviting meritorious foreigners among us, and 
the discouragement and mortification they nuust feel from the degrading dis- 
crimination now proposed. 

Governeur Morris, (Federalist) — The lesson we are thught is, that we 
should be governed as much by one's reason and as little by one's feelings as 
possible. He ran over the privileges which emigrants would enjoy among 
us, though they should be deprived of that of being eligible to the great offices 
of government, (as in England,) observing that they exceeded the privileges 
allowed to foreigners in any part of the world. The men who can shake off 
their attachment to their own country can never love any other. 

On the motion of Mr. Morris, the vote stood: New Hampshire, New .ler- 
sev, South Carolina, Georgia — Ayes 4. Massachusetts, Connecticut, Penn- 
sylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina — Noe^ 7. 

Mr. Rutledge. — Seven years' citizenship having been required for the 
House of Representatives, surely a longer time is requisite for the Senate, 
which will have more power. 

On the question for nine years: New Hampshire, New Jersey, Delaware, 
Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia — Ayes 6. Massachusetts, Connecticut, 
Pennsylvania, Maryland — Noes 4. North Carolina divided. 

On the 13th August, 1787, the question again came upon motion to strike 
out 7 and insert 4 years, as the required term for citizenship of a member of 
the House of Representatives. 

Mr. ]\Iadison (Republican) — Wished to maintain the character of liberality 
which had been professed in all the constitutions and publications of Amer- 
ica. He wished to invite foreigners of merit and republican principles 
among us. America was indebted to emigration for her settlement and pros- 
perity. 

Mr. Wilson (Republican) — Remarked that almost all the general officers of 
the Pennsylvania line of the late army were foreigners, and no conq:)l<iint 
had ever been made against their fidelity or merit. Three of her deputies 
to the Convention — Morris, Fitzsimmons and himself — were also not natives. 

On the motion to make the term 4 years instead of 7, the vote stood : 
Connecticut, Maryland, Virginia — Ayes 3. New Hampshire, Massachusetts, 
New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, North Carolina, South Carolina and 
Georgia-^Noes 8. 

Such, then, were the sentiments of the " revered Washington and his 
compatriots," on this great issue. But we are not left there as to the posi- 
tion of Washington. It were a bootless task to give from his writings what 
his opinions were. Garbled extracts have been paraded before the people, 
without relation to the context, to give some color of authority to the designs 
of this resuscitated American, Orange, Protestant, Jesuit organization ; but 
they can impose only on those who perversely shut their eyes against all 
knowledge. One example in point may suffice for the end which we have 
now in view. In December 17S9, while Washington was president, he ad- 
dressed a letter to the Catholics of the United States, in which he said: "As 
mankind become more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those 
who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community, are equally 
entitled to the civil government. I hojie to see America among the fore- 
most nations in examples of justice and liberality. And I presume that 
your fellow-citizens will not forget the patriotic part you took in the accom- 
plishment of their revolution, and the establishment of their government, or 



222 

the important assistance they received from a nation in which the Roman 
Catholic religion is professed." [12 Writings of Washington, 178.] 

We come now to that provision of the Constitution in regard to a religious 
test. 

Mr. Pinkney moved that no religious test shall ever be required as a qual- 
ification to any office or public trust under the United States. 

Mr. Sherman thought it unnecessary, the prevaiting liberaliiy being a 
sutlicient security against all such tests. It is remarkable that the motion 
was agreed to nem. con. without another word on the subject. Little did the 
framers of that instrument suppose that, in less than a century, an organiza- 
tion should arise, the object of which is to do indirectly the very thing which 
it was supposed could not possibly be done directly, even without the consti- 
tutional guarantee which now exists. 

It is equally remarkable, too, that in all the debates upon the adoption of 
the Constitution, there is nothing said upon the power conferred on Congress 
to pass uniform laws in relation to naturalization. The clause in regard to 
the test, however, did undergo a very rigid examination, and it may be well 
to show the spirit which prevailed at the time in regard to it. We will com- 
mence with Massachusetts. [2 Elliot's Debate, 156.] 

Rev. Mr. Backus. — I beg leave to offer a few thoughts upon the Constitu- 
tion proposed to us ; and I shall begin with the exclusion of any religious 
test. Many appear to be much concerned about it; but nothing is more evi- 
dent, both in reason and the holy scriptures, than that religion is ever a mat- 
ter between God and individuals ; and that, therefore, no man or set of men 
can impose any religious test without invading the essential prerogatives of 
our Lord .lesus Christ. Ministers first assumed this powder under the Chiis- 
tian name, and then Constantine approved of the practice when he adopted 
the profession of Christianity as an engine of state policy. And let the his- 
tory of all nations be searched, from that day to this, and it will appear that 
the imposing of religious tests hath been the greatest engine of tyranny in 
the world. 

Next Connecticut— [2 Elliot, 203.] 

Oliver Wolcott. — For myself I should be content either with or without 
the clause in the Constitution which excludes test laws. Knowledge and 
liberty are so prevalent in this country, that I do not believe that the 
United States would ever be disposed to establish one religious sect and lay 
all others under legal disabilities. But as we know not what may take place 
hereafter, and any such test would be destructive of the rights of free citi- 
zens, I cannot think it superfluous to have added a clause which secures us 
from the possibility of such oppression. 

Next Virginia— [3 Elliot, 113. Do. 313.] 

Mr. Madison. — 1 confess to you, sir, that were uniformity of religion to be 
introduced by this system, it would, in my opinion, be ineligible; but I have 
no reason to conclude that uniformity of government will produce that of 
religion. This subject is, for the honor of America, left perfectly free and 
unshackled. The government has no jurisdiction over it — the least reflec- 
tion will convince us there is no danger on this ground. Happily for the 
states, they enjoy the utmost freedom of religion. This freedom arises from 
that multiplicity of sects which pervades America, and which is the best and 
only security for religious liberty in any society. For, where there is such a 
variet}'^ of sects, there cannot be a majority of any one sect to oppress and 
persecute tne rest. 

Next North Carolina— [4 Elliot, 196.] 

Mr. Iredell used this comprehensive and elegant language : " Every per- 
son in the least conversant in the history of mankind, knows what dreadful 



223 

mischiefs have been committed by reli,f,nous persecution. Under the color of 
religious tests, the utmost cruelties have been exercised. Those in power 
have generally considered all wisdom centred in themselves, that they alone 
had the right to dictate to the rest of mankind, and that all opposition <o their 
tenets was profane and impious. The consequence of this intolerant spirit 
has been that each church has in turn set itself up against every other, and 
persecutions and wars of the most implacable and bloody nature have taken 
place in every part of the world. America lias set an example to mankind 
to think more rationally — that a man may be of religious sentiments diliering 
from our own, without being a bad member of society. The principles of 
toleration, to the honor of this age, are doing away those errors and i)reju- 
dices which have so long prevailed even in the most intolerant countries. In 
Roman Catholic lands principles of moderation are adopted which would 
have been spurned a century or two ago. It will be fatal, indeed, to find the 
time, W'hen examples of toleration are set even by arbitrary governments, 
that this country, so impressed with the highest sense of liberty, should 
adopt principles on this subject that were narrow, despotic and illiberal." 

Tiiese, then, were the sentiments of the compatriots of Washington. I 
commend them to the state of his birth — in this fatal hour of the republic— 
when the poisonous drops of a horrid fanaticism, and a not less horrid big- 
otry, are distilled into the ears of the people — when an " airy devil hovers in 
her sky and rains down mischief!" Shall we go forward to that crag which 
beetles over an unfathomable abyss, or shall we stand now and forever as a 
commonwealth upon our glorious act of religious freedom? 

" Shall we, on this fair mountain, have leave to feed. " 

My next point is, that the principles of the Orange Americans, that "Ame- 
rica shall be ruled by Americans;" that " foreigners ought not to be eligible 
to office," and " that all public positions ought to be filled by natives of the 
soil," are nothing more than revivals of the doctrines of Federalism, British 
Federalism in its worst type : of that party in this country which has had so 
little of Americanism about it, that in every war that we have ever had, it 
has been against that very flag which is now used as a symbol, a desecrated 
symbol, in their Jesuitical orgies, and demagoguical mysteries. What are 
the proofs ? 

On the. 3d day of May, 1798, Harrison Gray Otis, of Massachusetts, a 
Federalist, and afterw^ards a member of the infamous Hartford Convention, 
introduced into Congress this resolution : — [Annals 5th Congress, page 1570.] 

"Resolved, That no alien born, who is not at present a citizen of the 
United States, shall hereafter be capable of holding any office of honor, trust 
or profit under the United States." 

The Democratic party then, as now, took ground against this most illiberal 
exclusion. We shall show this by the debates. 

Mr. Venable, of Virginia, (Democrat,) did not think the House -were 
authorized to enact such a principle into a law. If taken up at all it ought 
to be considered as a proposition for amending the Constitution. If it was 
thought necessary by gentlemen to amend the Constitution in this way, w^hy 
not make the proposition? After foreigners were admitted as citizens. Con- 
gress had not the power of declaring what should be their rights; the Consti- 
tution has done this. Foreigners must therefore be refused the privilege of 
becoming citizens altogether or admitted to all the rights of citizens. 

Mr. Otis, of Massachusetts, (Federalist,) had no idea this proposition could 
be considered as a proposition to amend the Constitution. If the House had 
the power to amend the naturalization law, and extend the time of residence 
necessary to entitle an alien to citizenship, they could certainly extend it to 



224 

the life of a man. The idea of citizenship did not always include the power 
of holding offices. In Great Britain no alien was ever permitted to hold an 
office ; he wished they might not be allowed to do it here ! 

Mr. Venable, in reply. He did not believe Congress had the power of 
saying men who were entitled to hold offices by the Constitution shall not 
hold them. 

Mr. Macon., of North Carolina, (Democrat.) — If a man is a citizen he is 
eligible to office agreeably to the constitutional rule, and that could not be 
altered by law. If the people choose to elect a foreigner as a member of 
the Legislature, if he had been a citizen seven years, Congress could not say 
he should not be eligible. 

Mr. Otis, in continuation. — " What advantage was derived to this country 
from giving foreigners eligibility to office ? The people of this country were 
certainly equal to the legii^lation and administration of their own government. 
He had no doubt many aliens would become very valuable acquisitions to this 
country; but he had no idea of admitting them into the government. Grejit 
Britain was very careful of the avenues whicli led to her freedom. Aliens 
were there excluded from holding all places of honor, profit or trust. It had 
not only been thought good policy in times past to encourage foreignei's to 
come to this country, but also to admit them into the Legislature and impor- 
tant offices. But now America is growing into a nation of importance, and 
it would be an object with foreign nations to gain an influence in our councils; 
and before such an attempt was made it was proper to make provision 
against it !" 

How many speeches have we lately heard which are like this one of Mr. 
Otis ! 

It seems, too, that another plea, vciy commonly put forward was then in 
vogue too. 

Mr. McDowell, of N. C, (Democrat.) — " It has-been said our population 
was now sufficient, and that the privileges heretofore allowed to foreigners 
might now be withdrawn. In some parts of the country this might, in some 
degree, be the case ; but he knew there were other parts which wanted popu- 
lation." 

Robert Goodloe Harper, South Carolina, (Federalist,) — " Believed it was 
high time we should recover from the mistake which this country fell into 
when it first began to form its Constitution, of admitting foreigners to citizen- 
ship. He believed the time had now come when it was proper to declare 
that nothing but birth should entitle a man to citizenship in this country. 
This was the English doctrine. He was for giving foreigners every facility 
for acquiring property, of balding this property, of raising their families, and 
of tr;insferring their property to their families. He was willing they should 
form citizens for us; but, as to the rights of citizenship, he was not v,illing 
the}^ .-^liould be enjoyed except by persons born on the soil. If the native 
citizens are indeed adequate to the performance of the duties of the govern- 
ment, he could not see for what reasons strangers are admitted. None but 
persons born in the country should be permitted to take part in the govern-: 
ment. He moved to amend by adding the following words : 'or of voting at 
the election of any member of the Legislature of the United States, or of 
any state.' " 

The alien law was then under consideration, upon which, and the sedition 
law, Virginia passed her renowned resolutions iti 179'^. We need not nou' al- 
lude specifically to its provisions. It gave the president power to order all 
aliens he may judge dangerous to the United States, or that he may suspect to 
be so, to depart out of the country in such time as he himself may specify. 
And if ordered to depart, and he remained without a license from the presi- 



225 

dent, he was to be imprisoned for a term of three years, and forever debarred 
of all the privileges of a citizen. 

The debates show that the Democratic party opposed this act, and it be- 
came one of the grand lines of demarcation in 1800. The liberal policy 
cstiiblislied by our fathers Avas not siillicient for the Federalists, who desired 
to make America conform to Britain in regard to aliens, in regard to a bank, 
in regard to the whole governmental policy. Here, again, the Democratic 
party, in peace as in war, were the American party, as they are now, and as 
W'e trust ever shall be. But to the proofs : 

Mr. Allen, of Connecticut, Federalist, [Annals of 5th Congress, 1798,] 
" alluded to the vast number of naturalizations which lately took place in this 
city (Philadelphia) to support the party opposed to the president (John 
Adams) in a particular election." 

Have we not heard similar language used in our day by the men in favor 
of the same course of policy? 

Mr. Sewell, (Democrat.) — "What is to be feared from the residence of 
aliens among us? Anything to ruin the country? He acknowledged many 
inconveniences arose from this circumstance, but more from their own un- 
natural children, who in the bosom of their parent conspired her destruction." 

Then, it was the cry of the French, now it is the power of the Pope, which 
is made the pretext for this new agitation. Listen ! 

Mr. Allen, of Connecticut, (Federalist.) — A person in this city, who has 
too respectable a standing, and who is doing too much business in it, has de- 
clared that he wished to see a French army land in this country, and that he 
would do all in his power to further their landing. He had heard nearly the 
same thing from another quarter. Not that he was himself afraid of beino- 
assassinated or having the city burnt. 

Mr. Gallatin, (Dem.) of Pennsylvania. — This bill was not only contrary to 
every principle of justice and reason, but to the plain provisions of the Con- 
stitution. The Constitution says "that no person shall be deprived of life, 
limb or property, without due process of law." But here persons may be 
deprived of their liberty without any process of law, or being guilty of any 
crime. 

Mr. Livingston, (Dem.) of N. Y. — He esteemed it as one of the most for- 
tunate occurrences of his life, that after an inevitable absence from a seat in 
that house, he had arrived in time to express his dissent to this monstrous 
bill. It would have been a source of eternal regret and the keenest remorse 
if any private affairs had deprived him of the opportunity of recordino- his 
vote against an act he believed in direct violation of the Constitution, and 
marked with every characteristic of the most odious despotism. By this act 
the president alone is authorized to make the law — to fix in his own mind 
what acts, what words, what thoughts or looks shall constitute tlie crime con- 
templated by the bill, that is, the crime of " being suspected to be dano-erous 
to the peace and safety of the United States." This comes completely with- 
in the definition of despotism — an union of legislative, executive and judicial 
powers. 

Mr. Tazewell, (Dem.) of Virginia — Knew of but one power given to Con- 
gress by the Constitution which could exclusively apply to aliens, and that 
was the power of naturalization. Whether this was a power which excluded 
the states from its exercise, or gave to Congress only a concurrent authority 
over the subject, he would not now pretend to say. But it neither author- 
ized Congress to prohibit the migration of foreigners to any state, nor to ban- 
ish them when admitted. It was a power which could only authorize Con- 
gress to give or withhold citizenship. The states, notwithstanding this power 
of naturalization, could impart to aliens the right of suffrage, and the right tO' 
15 



226 

purchase and hold lands. There was in this respect no restraint upon the 
states. 

At the same session the sedition law passed — a law aimed at the natives, 
as the other was aimed at the foreigners. It provided that any one who 
should write, print, utter or publish, or cause or procure the same to be dane, 
any malicious writing against the government of the United States, or either 
house of Congress, or the president, should be punished by a fine not exceed- 
ing two thousand dollars, and by imprisonment not exceeding two years. It 
is not necessary now to dip into the debates on this branch of the subject. 
It would extend this paper longer than we desire. It is sufficient to say that 
the same principles were involved — the same division of parties took place 
— the same liberality was advocated by the American Democratic party — 
and the same narrowness and exclusion found advocates among those who, 
instead of mapping out a system of Americans and America, looked to En- 
gland for the great principles of their public action. The feeling of the time 
may be deduced from a letter of Timothy Pickering to Alexander Hamilton, 
both noted Federalists. — [6 Hamilton's Works, 303.] 

•'The alien bills introduced into the houses of Congress have undergone 
such alterations I do not know their present form. Of one thing, however, 
you may rest assured, that they will not err on the side of severity, much 
less of cruelty." 

Here, perhaps, it may be well for a moment to pause, and dwell upon a 
most remarkable prediction made by Duncan of Ohio, in a speech delivered 
in the House of Representatives on the 19tli of February, 1845 [Appen- 
dix 28 Congress,' vol. 14, page 413.] 

" Indulge me while I expose a few of the corrupt and iniquitous measures 
which have ever marked the course of the Federal party, not only to secure 
their elections, but to secure their favorite measures. It is a fundamental 
principle of Federalism, that the want of intelligence of the common people 
makes them unfit for self-government; and they being of the uncommon 
class, should of right be the governors. Hence it is, that all their means to 
secure their elections and their favorite measures, are directed to the sup- 
posed ignorance and stupidity of the people — that ihey knoiv nof/it7}g! I 
will trace up some of those means from an early period of our government, 
by which the Federal party may be known under whatever name they may 
have assumed, or may hereafter assume for political deception; for so Ion o" 
as they shall be known by their true name, and their principles are known 
to correspond with their name, the Democracy must and will triumph. 

" I begin with the unprincipled practice they have of changing their name. 
They have changed their name with the periodical return of every presiden- 
tial election : and this for the purpose of concealing their principles and 
deceiving the people. Their last name was Whig, and that name they kept 
as long as it would answer any purpose ; but they will never fight another 
battle under the banner inscribed Whig again. Having exhausted the polit- 
ical vocabulary, they will return to the abuse and persecution of the Irish 
and Germans which characterized the party in the administration of the elder 
Adams. Nothing is longer to be feared from a change of name. The peo- 
ple contemplate them as they do a stranger, who gives himself a new or 
different name in every town or village through which he passes. They look 
upon him as a scape-gallows or horse-thief who merits the rope or the peni- 
tentiary." 

The best commentary upon this passage, is the following editorial from the 
New York Express, a Whig paper, of the date of the 14th of February last : 

" It gives us no pleasure to refer to the past glory of the Whig party, or to 
write the obituary of that which we have joyed in and jo^'ed over ; but we 
conduct a newspaper, not a Book of Lamentations, and we cannot shut our 



227 

eyes to continually occurnn<T facts. The Whig platform, ' previously spit 
upon,' to q^Lioto, the coarse j)hrase of a city contemporary, lias now been so 
shattered b}"^ the withdrawal of its main protective taritf plank, that there is 
not enou<!;li left of the corpse, we fear, for any species of political anatomiza- 
tion. Internal improvement is a vague idea; a protective tarill" is abandon- 
ed even in New England, where the manufacturers say it is not only not 
needed, but has become an embarrassment, just as in England when the 
Peelite manufacturers turned their somerset and flung oat the banner of free 
trade. Massachusetts now stands with Alabama on the taritl". The currency 
issues have been superseded by the railroads and magnetic telegraphs, which 
do away with all necessity for any great regulator of the domestic exchequer. 
Indeed, there is not a Whig principle that Clay and Webster fought for, that 
is not dead and buried ! Nevertheless, Whig hosts will hover for months 
over the tombs of Clay and Webster, and the principks buried with them; 
for mourners of parties, like other mourners, are the last to believe in the 
dissolution of death." 

Such being the condition of the W^hig party, what course remained but to 
do what Duncan said they would do: go back to the old principles which we 
have shown to be British, and not American, and abuse and persecute the 
Irish and Dutch, with an addition of British, not American, disqualifications 
against Catholics? They hoped in this way to seduce off a sufficient num- 
ber of unsuspecting Protestant Democrats to give them the balance of power. 
It was the last resort of Federalism ; and, to crown all, they steal their very 
war-cries of hostility against the Pope, of his power to exempt his subjects 
from the oath of allegiance, from the bigotry and intolerance of England. 
This device was used there for centuries, and after being reduced so low that 
no respectable man in that kingdom will use it, it is vamped up and paraded 
here as something new, patriotic and American ! I wish I had the time to 
go into this branch of the subject, but I must postpone it to a future paper. 

On the slavery question — on the extension of territory — on foreigners — 
the old Federal party occupied f)recisely the same grounds now occupied by 
the Protestant Jesuits of the north. I design hereafter, if I can find the 
leisure, to show this in detail; but I must for the present confine myself to 
the latter branch of the subject alone. 

Let us pursue 'still further the history of parties on the alien question. 
Virginia declared her sentiments in the resolutions of Madison in 1798, to 
which, in spite of Federal jeers and jibes, we are forced back more and 
more every year for an exposition of the true powers and functions of this 
confederacy. 

In the language of one of these resolutions, " the General Assembly pro- 
tests againjjt, the palpable and alarming infractions of the Constitution, in the 
late case of the alien and sedition acts, passed at the last session of Congress, 
which exercise powers nowhere delegated to the federal government, and by 
uniting legislative and judicial powers to those of executive, subverts the 
general principles of a free government.'' 

Alexander Hamilton, true to the instincts of Federalism, could not let 
these sentiments pass. He refers to Jefferson's opinions on emigration, ex- 
pressed in his notes on Virginia, which are quoted now in all the American 
Orange councils as indicating his approval of their work, and then makes these 
animadversions on the passage of the message we have quoted, in which we 
shall see the very language now used by them and their adherents upon this 
subject. He says: — [7 Hamilton's Works, 771.] 

" It is certain that had the late election been decided entirely by native 
citizens and native votes; had foreign auxiliaries been rejected on both sides, 
the man who ostentatiously vaunts that the doors of public honor and confi- 
dence have been burst open to him, would not now have been at the head of 



228 

the American nation. The pathetic and plaintive exclamations, by which 
the sentiment is enforced, might be liable to much criticism, if we are to 
consider it in any other light than as a flourish of rhetoric. It might be 
asked, in return, does the right to asylum or hospitality carry with it the 
right to suftVagc and sovereignty ? And what, indeed, was the courteous 
reception which was given to our forefathers by the savages of the wilder- 
ness ? When did these humane and philanthropic savages exercise the poli- 
cy of incorporating strangers among themselves on the first arrival in the 
country? When did they admit them into their huts to make part of their 
families? And when did they distinguish them by making them their 
sachems and chiefs?" 

We have now traced the division of parties on this subject to the time of 
JeOerson, by an appeal to the record, and by undoubted authorities. We 
may hereafter carry the parallel down to our own days. It can be done 
most conclusively, but we must reserve other views for another occasion. 
To show how consistent Federalism was on this subject, it is only necessary 
to refer to the proceedings of the Hartford Convention. We shall select two 
resolutions, as in point. 

The first was, that " the most inviolable secrecy shall be observed by each 
member of this convention, including the secretary, as to all propositions, 
debates and proceedings thereof, until this injunction shall be removed, sus- 
pended or altered." 

The next is, " That no person who shall hereafter be a naturalized citizen 
of the United States shall be eligible as a member of the Senate, or the 
House of Representatives of the United States, nor be capable of holding 
any civil office under the authority of the United States." 

At this point we must close, leaving other views for the future. We have 
written mainly for the benefit of the young men of the state, over whom 
this American Orange organization is most zealously striving to obtain con- 
trol. By subtle appeals to their patriotism — to their native pride — to their 
holy zeal for the land of their birth, they seek to draw them into a crusade 
against the purest principles of our constitutional faith — against the very 
heart of the nation. Let the young men of the state go back to the precepts 
and doctrines of our ancestors, as herein delineated, and then decide for 
themselves the question whether they will follow those who have proven 
themselves to be the lights of the universe — immortal not less in their con- 
sciousness than in their maintenance of the right in religion as well as in the 
state ; or whetlier they will forswear the ancient colors of the republic, and 
go back in the history of the human race four hundred years, to the exclu- 
sions, the penalties and disabilities, both political and religious, which, instead 
of being indigenous to our soil, are but poisonous exotics transplanted from 
Great Britain ! Believe me, this is not an age to deprive humanity of any 
of its dear-bought privileges. Human ingenuity may go very far, but no 
mode can be devised to justify persecution — to sanctify bigotry, or deify the 
crimes which we may commit on our fellow men. Passion and prejudice 
may go far, very far too; they may establish parties, they may give them 
temporary success, but they will realize the reflections of Sandoval to Henry: 

" Always strivest thou to be great 
By thine own act, — yet art thou never ^reat, 
But by the inspiration of great passion ; 
The whirl blast comes, the desert sands rise up 
And shape themselves ; from earth to heaven they stand 
As though they were the pillars of a temple 
Built by Omnipotence in its own honor! 
But the blast pauses, and their shaping spirit 
Is fled : the mighty columns were but sand. 
And lazy snakes trail over the level ruins !" 



229 

la reply to the arguments, empty declarations, and bold assertions of the 
Know Nothings respecting the temporal power of the Tope, the Examiner pub- 
lished the following editorial : 

COMFORT FOR THE FRtGHTENED— CHEER FOR THE FAINT- 
HEARTED. 

There is a convenient provision in the i^ecrct constitution of the Know Noth- 
ing Order, (not promulged, however, in their published Basis Principles,) allow- 
ing their grand National Council to grant dispensations to the Councils in the 
States, exempting them from such provisions of that instrument as may not be 
locally popular. Accordingly, the Councils of Louisiana, a State settled chiefly 
by French Catholics, have a dispensation from all those articles of their consti- 
tution which are proscriptive of Catholics, and would exclude that sect from 
office and from suffrage. So that in the very State in which — if there were 
real danger from the temporal authority of the Pope, that danger would be im- 
minent and appalling, — this valiant order of Protestant lions are roaring as 
gently as sucking doves against the Romish hierarchy. 

While the Order in Louisiana are courting Catholic votes with commendable 
assiduity, their brethren in the State of Virginia are in a terrible state of alarm 
on the subject of a Popish invasion, and are quoting newspaper authority from 
Dublin, to show that the Pope does claim the power to depose sovereigns fronx 
their thrones — a power that might be exerted with dreadful effect upon the 
sovereigns of Screamersville, Butchertown, and the Hanover Slashes. 

When we hear intelligent Virginia gentlemen, entitled to be respected for 
candor on every other subject, inveighing against Popes and Catholics, as 
inimical to the State Government of Virginia, and threatening to the official 
safety of Governor Joseph Johnson, we are tempted to inquire in derision and 
compassion, why this valorous assault on eight thousand Catholics in Virginia? 
while their order have not the honesty, the candor, the patriotism, or the courage 
to lift a iioger against that denomination in Louisiana, where they are really 
numerous and strong, and where, if their ascendancy were really dangerous to 
free institutions, it would deserve their attention. 

But proving the hypocrisy of Know Nothingism, by pointing to the chang- 
ing hues of its chameleon charlatanry in different quarters of the Union, may 
not suffice, as it should do, to remove the apprehensions of weak minded, but 
well meaning Virginians about Popish and Catholic machinations against their 
government and liberties. If these were indeed in danger from such a source, 
it is very plain from the conduct of the Know Nothings in the State of Louis- 
iana that safety is not to be sought in that weather-cock Order, but that it rests 
where the safety of all liberty and liberal governments rests — in the strong 
arms and brave hearts of a free people. This Know Nothing clamor about the 
Pope and his authority, is a pusillanimous outcry, appealing to the fears of the 
people against a sort of danger from which their own bravery and intelligence 
are ever the sole and the all sufficient safeguard. 

The Know Nothings, for the want of better authority, are parading an edi- 
torial article from a foreign newspaper, entitled the Dublin Tabkt, asserting 
the power of the Pope in temporal affairs, and especially his power to depose 
rulers. The assertion and the explanation of the power claimed are both em- 
bodied in the following sentence from the Dublin article : 

" The deposing power does actually exist at present ; it is publicly taught in 

every state that considers itself free. It is the doctrine of Aiaericans, for they 

■ deposed George III. It is the doctrine of Englishmen, who deposed James II.; 

and of Frenchmen, for they have deposed the dynasty of the Bourbons. The 

Spaniards admit it, for Queen Isabella's throne is in danger. The difference 



230 

between the modern and mediseval world consists in this. We vest this in the 
people ; our ancestors, more wisely, in the Pope. In England, the deposing 
doctrine is made a law of the kingdom, to be put in force whenever the reign- 
ing sovereign prefers his soul to the sceptre. Kings, of course, have done their 
utmost to discredit the doctrine, and they have gained for themselves, instead 
of it, the scaffold and the sword. The divine right of certain families to govern 
nations according to their will is refuted, not by argument, but by exile or a 
violent death. If kings prefer this solution of the difficulty to that which 
mediaeval principles offered, that is their affair. This, however, is certain, the 
Pope was more patient and considerate than the people are, and a deposition is 
less injurious to society than a bloody revolution. A deposition does not ne- 
cessarily involve a change of dynasty, but in general, revolution does; and 
perhaps kings might, on reflection, prefer to lose the crown to themselves only, 
to losing it for the family as well." 

It is very plain that this witness, whom the Know Nothing journals, for the 
■want of a better, have lugged in to their support, and are vouching with so 
much gusto, means to assert only some such power for the Catholic Christians, 
under dispensations from the Pope, as all free people claim in regard to the ci- 
vil authority — " the same power as does actually exist among all people claim- 
ing to be free" — a power like that which the South claims, of secession from 
the Union, and which the people of every free country claim, of j^oUt'ical revo- 
lution in the failure of all other means of redress. 

This accidentally discovered and solitary witness of the Know Nothings, there- 
fore, proves no practical claim of temporal power on the part of tie Pope, and only 
/raises a nice question of political casuistry, the discussion of which now would 
be as useless as a discussion of the abstract doctrines of State secession and of 
popular revolution. A great noise was made in England, more than fifty years 
ago, about this very idea of the Pope's temporal authority, and evidence was 
taken which is certainly entitled to more weight than the loose and irresponsible 
editorial of a Dublin editor. 

Mr. Pitt, as Prime Minister of England, contemplating an act of justice to 
the Catholics, solemnly proposed a set of interrogatories to several of the most 
celebrated Catholic Theological Universities in Europe. The following ques- 
tions were proposed : First, Has the Pope, or have the Cardinals, or any body 
of men, or has any individual of the Church of Rome, an^ civil authoriti/, 
power, jurisdiction or pre-eminence whatever, within the realm of England? 
Second, Can the Pope, or Cardinals, or any body of men, or any individual of 
the Church of Home, absolve or dispense his Majesty's subjects from their oath 
of allegiance, upon any pretence whatever? Third, Is there any principle in 
the tenets of the Catholic faith, by which Catholics are justified in not keeping 
*' faith with Heretics, or other persons differing from them in Religious opinions, 
in a7ij/ transactions either of a public or private nature? To these questions 
the Universities of Paris, Louvain, Alcala, Salamanca and Valadolid, after ex- 
pressing their astonishment that it could be thought necessary at the close of the 
18th century, and in a country so enlightened as England, to propose such enqui- 
ries, severally and unanimously answered : 1st, That the Pope, or Cardinals, or 
any body of men, or any individual of the Church of Rome, has not and have 
not any civil authority, power, jurisdiction or pre-eminence whatever, within the 
realm of England. 2dly, That the Pope, or Cardinals, or any body of men, or 
any individual of the Church of Rome, cannot absolve or dispense his Majesty's 
subjects from their oath of allegiance upon any pretext whatsoever; and 3dly, 
That there is no principle in the tenets of the Catholic Faith, by which Catho- 
lics are justified in not keeping faith with Heretics, or other persons differing 
from them in religious opinions, in transactions either of a public or a private 
nature. The Pope himself was written to upon the same questions, and most 



231 

solemnly announced that his See asserted no such claim. Surely this is better 
testimony than the self contradictory declaration of a Dublin Catholic editor. 

We do not rely, however, in a matter of this sort, upon documentary evidence, 
or newspaper asseveration. "We take the ground, that the people are themselves 
sufficient to assert and maintain their independence of Popes of all sorts ; and 
that they are in no danger of being deposed from the sovereignty with which 
their Maker and their Fathers endowed them in these States. Three thousand 
and fifty Protestant clergy will in vain hurl their anathemas against them^from 
Yankee pulpits, and one Dublin editor may impotcntly proclaim the Pope's au- 
thority over their temporal concerns, but while they have the right to manage 
their own affairs, spite of Popes and of secret clubs, they will always be ready 
and able to maintain and support that sovereignty. It is only an insult to the 
intelligence, the manliness and the Christian sentiment of the A'irginia people 
to maintain the possibility of a priestcraft domination over them from any quar- 
ter or of any sort. 

But what are the historical evidences of the truth of tliis charge, that Catho- 
lics are less attached to civil governments entitled to their allegiance, than other 
denominations? Surely the Catholic subjects of the British crown have had 
cause of offence against that government in its persecutions of Catholic Ireland. 
Surely the only Catholic province of that government, on this continent, might 
have been excused, while these persecutions of their Catholic brethren, in Ire- 
land, were going on, for seeking annexation to the United States. _ Surely the 
French Catholics of Canada have had incentives of animosity sufficient to shako 
their allegiance to the British government in its numberless and bitter wars 
against Catholic France. Yet what is the present political status of Catholic,^ 
French, colonial Canada? Hear how Lord Nugent refutes this idea of a half 
allegiance on the part of Catholics : 

" Your other colonies revolted ; they called on a Catholic power to support 
them, and they achieved their independence. Catholic Canada, with what Lord 
Liverpool would call her half-allegiance, nlone stood by you. She fought by 
your side against the interference of Catholic France. To reward and encour- 
age her loyalty, you endowed in Canada bishops to say mass, and to ordain 
others to say mass, whom, at that very time, your laws would have hanged for 
saying mass in England; and Canada is still yours in spite of Catholic France, 
in spite of her spiritual obedience to the Pope, in spite of Lord Liverpool's ar- 
gument, and in spite of the independence of all the States that surround her. 
This is the only trial you have made. Where you allow to the Roman Catholics 
their religion undisturbed, it has proved itself to be compatible with the most 
faithful allegiance. It is only where you have placed allegiance and religion be- 
fore them a? a dilemma, that they have preferred (as who will say that they 
ought not ?) their religion to their allegiance. How then stands the imputation ? 
Disproved by history, disproved in all States where both religions co-exist, and 
in both hemispheres, and asserted in an exposition by Lord Liverpool, solemnly 
and repeatedly abjured by all Catholics, of the discipline of their Church." — 
Lord Nwjent's Ltlter to Rev. Sir George Lee, Bart. 

Men might idly dispute till doomsday over the nice question in political ca- 
suistry of the extent of the Papal claim of temporal power outside of Rome. 
But here are facts which illustrate how devoted Catholics may be and are in tho 
habit of showing themselves in the practical matter of allegiance. Yet it is 
due to candor to admit that there are historical instances in which Catholics 
have refused to obey the calls of the British Government. The Irish Catholic 
Parliament refused to furnish taxes to support the war against the American 
Colonics in their struggle for freedom. Then, too, there is this notable passage 
in BoTTA, p. 236-7. 



232 

" General Carleton, finding the Canadians so decided in their opposition, had 
recourse to the authority of religion. He therefore solicited Brand, the Bishop 
of Quebec, to publish a mandanient, to be read from the pulpit, by the curates, 
in time of divine service. He desired the prelates should exhort the people to 
take arms, and second the soldiers of the king, in their enterprises against the 
colonies. But the bishop, Z»_y a memorahle example of pietj/ and religious mo- 
deration, refused to lend his ministry in this work ; saying that such conduct 
would be too unworthy the character of the pastor, and too contrary to the ca- 
nons of the Roman Church. However, as in all professions there are indivi- 
duals who prefer their interest to their duty, and the useful to the honest, a 
few ecclesiastics employed themselves with great zeal in this affair; but all their 
efforts were vain ; the Canadians (Catholics) persisted in their principles of neu- 
trality. The nobility, so well treated in the act of Quebec, felt obligated in 
gratitude to promote in this occurrence the views of the government, and very 
strenuously exerted themselves with that intent on, but without any better suc- 
cess. The exhortations of Congress did not contribute alone to confirm the in- 
habitants in these sentiments, &c. &c. 

" General Carleton, perceiving that he could make no calculation upon being 
able to form Canadian regiments, and knowing, withal, that there existed in the 
province certain loyalists, who would have no repugnance to taking arms, and 
other individuals whom interest might easily induce to enlist as volunteers, re- 
solved to employ a new expedient. He caused the drums to beat up, in Que- 
bec, in order to excite the people to enroll themselves in a corps to which he 
gave the name of the Royal Highland Emigrants. He offered the most favo- 
rable conditions. The term of service was limited to the continuance of the 
disturbances; each soldier was to receive two hundred acres of land, in any 
province of North America he might choose ; the king paid himself the cus- 
tomary duties upon the acquisition of lands ; for twenty years, the new pro- 
prietors were to be exempted from all contribution for the benefit of the crown ; 
every married soldier obtained other fifty acres, in consideration of his wife, 
and fifty more for account of each of his children, with the same privileges and 
exemptions, besides the bounty of a guinea at the time of enlistment. In this 
manner, Carleton succeeded in gleaning up some few soldiers; but he was re- 
duced to attach much more importance to the movements of the Indians" — 

— who proved themselved genuine " Native Americans." 

It is a well known fact that when Lord Howe, the first British commander 
of the forces designated at the breaking out of the American war for the inva- 
sion of this country, was ordered by the war department to prepare for embar- 
kation, he wrote that he could not trust the Irish Catholic soldiers of his army, 
as all their sympathies were with America; and the British Government was 
forced to buy Protestant Hessians at the rate of sixpence a head from the 
Prince of Hesse Cassel. And the emissaries despatched to Germany wrote 
more than once to Lord North complaining bitterly of the German Catholics 
interfering with the enlistment of soldiers for America. 

There are facts, however, still later, and, if possible, still stronger than 
these. 

Catholic Louisiana fought full as bravely and effectually as Know Nothing 
Massachusetts apinst Catholic Mexico in the war of 1846-'47. Louisiana fur- 
nished seven regiments and 7,041 troops to fight against her brethren of the 
Catholic faith iu that war of races and religions ; altho' Know Nothing Massa- 
chusetts, in the excess of her zeal against the Pope and his people, furnished 
but one regiment of 930 men to smite the Mexican priests ; and furnished that 
number only by dint of most strenuous exertions on the part of the patriotic 
Democrats in her borders. If you ask which three States furnished the lar- 
gest number of troops in that foreign war against a Catholic nation and a Cath- 



233 

olic race, the arcbives of the country v?ill tell you that they were the Catholic 
States of Louisiana, Missouri and Texas. These furnished respectfully 7,041, 
6,441 and 0,955 men, or an aggregate equal to the total number supplied by 
all the other States in the Union ! Besides, it is notoriouG that the regular 
army of the United States was made up during that war so exclusively of Irish, 
(Catholics) that it was difficult to find natives enough for the non-commissioned 
officers. 

Surely the generous people of Virginia will consider the evidence of the 
muster rolls of the country a better tablet of Catholic patriotism, under all 
temptations of religious prejudice and bigotry, than the newspaper columns of 
a raw Irishman in Dublin. Let.tho»e who, for political purposes, are seeking 
to excite the hatred of the niagnanimous Virginia voters against that patriotic 
people, read these facts of history, and blush for their lack of generosity. 



The arguments employed in Virginia to shew that the Know Nothing party 
in the free States sympathised and co-operated with the Abolition or anti- 
Nebraska party, were supported by the most overwhelming and conclusive 
proof. The evidence of this unholy alliance, we herewith spread befure our 
readers without comment. 

CHANG AND ENG— SAM AND THE WOOLLY-HEADS— A CHAP- 
TER OF DEATH WARRANTS. 

What a sad story are the accounts from every quarter of the North, telling 
of Sara's affiliations ! And how cruelly inopportune are these accounts for his 
followers in Virginia ! Behold in the following schedule the record of the 
strolling Yankee Abolitionist's delinquencies at the North. We begin with 
New York. 

THE VOICE OF THE NEW YORK LEGISLATURE. 

The following resolutions were passed by the Legislature of New York before 
their recent adjournment. The negative vote in the Senate was five to nine 
out of some thirty in the affirmative, and in the House it ranged from about 
eleven nays to sixty yeas. The very few Democrats in the Legislature voted 
generally "against the resolutions, and the Seward Whigs and the Know Noth- 
ings seem to have gone in a body for them : 

Whereas the passage of the bill organizing the Territories of Kansas and 
Nebraska, and repealing that portion of the Missouri Compromise which pro- 
hibited the existence of slavery within their limits, for the purpose of permit- 
ting its establishment upon their soil, was a gross violation of good faith, and 
inflicted grievous wrong upon free labor and free principles throughout the 
Union ; 

[Passed — yeas 61, nays 9.] 

And whereas this act and the spirit in which it was consummated demonstrate 
the determination of the slaveholding interest to use the power of the Federal 
Government to promote the indefinite extension and permanent establishment- 
of slavery ; 

[Passed— 56 to 15.] 

And whereas Congress, having no power or right to interfere with slavery as 
it may exist in any State, is expressly commanded by the Federal Constitution 



234 

to make all needful rules and regulations concerning the Territories of the 
United States : Therefore; 

[Passed— 69 to 1.] 

Kesolved, (if the assembly concur,) That the people of the State of New 
lork, represented in senate and assembly, demand of Congress the enactment 
of a law declaring that slavery shall not exist except where it is established by 
the local law of the State — thus restoring, by positive statute, the prohibition 
of slavery from the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska, 

[Passed— 65 to 11.] 
^Resolved, (if the assembly concur,) That the people of the State of New- 
York, represented in senate and assembly, will not consent to the admission 
into the Union of any State that may be formed out of the Territories of Kan- 
sas and Nebraska, unless its constitution shall prohibit the existence of slavery 
within its limits. 

[Passed— 58 to 11.] 

"Whereas the repeal of the Missouri Compromise and the repudiation of a 
solemn legislative compact by the slaveholding interest, for the extension of 
slavery, has released the free States from all obligations that may be expressed 
or implied in any compromises on the subject of slavery outside of the federal 
constitution : Therefore, be it 

[Passed— 55 to 12.] 
^ Resolved, (if the assembly concur,) That while the people of the State of 
New York, represented in senate and assembly, recognize, and have always 
respected, the obligation of that prohibitory clause of the Constitution of the 
United States which declares that *' no person held to service or labor in one 
State, under the laws thereof, escaping therein, be discharged from such service 
or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service 
or labor may be due," they regard the law of 1850, which provides for em- 
ploying the whole power of the federal government in the recapture of fugitive 
slaves, as a violation of the Constitution, an encroachment on the rights of the 
several States, an outrage upon the principles of justice, and disgraceful to the 
spirit and civilization of the age in which we live; and that, in their opinion, 
the welfare of the Union and the principles of republican liberty demand its 
repeal. 

[Passed — 53 to 15.] 

Two other resolutions were adopted as a sort of blind to indicate that the 
Seward party are not favorable to the Know Nothings, and these resolutions 
will doubtless be quoted as such in the slave States. They object simply to 
secret societies, but do not denounce the war upon religious belief, upon emi- 
gration, or upon adopted citizens. 

We next go to Massachusetts. 

MEETIiNG AND ACTION OF TDE KNOW NOTHING STATE COUNCIL OF MASSA- 
CHUSETTS. 

The Boston Chronicle makes the following statement of the transactions of 
this body : 

'' Senator "Wilson made a speech in opposition to debarring all persons from 
office who are not native born. The General said that his nativism, when it 
carried him to an endeavor to make a twenty-one year naturalization law, carried 
him far enough, and as far as the party of the South and West would agree to. 
Mr. Ely, of Boston, urged the propriety of excluding all aliens from office, but 
the views of Mr. "Wilson seem to have the more adherents in the meeting. 

"We understand, also, that the delegation from this State was instructed to 
urge upon the National Convention the opening of the doors of the lodges for 



235 

the future, and to do away with much if not all of the present secrecy. Reso- 
httions were pasi:eJ in favor of the abolition of slavery in the JJiatrict of Col- 
vmhia, and t7i all the United Spates Territories ; declaring that no more slave 
States can he admitted into the Union, but that slavery may be unmolested where 
it now exists. Furthermore, that these resolutions MUST BE INSISTED ON at any 
cost, even to the dissolution of the Convention." 

The Evening Telegraph says of the election : 

"It is rumored to-day that there were about three hundred votes thrown for 
the officers. The tone of the council was decidedly auti-slavery. Henry J. 
Gardner, of Boston, Henry Wilson, cf Natick, Edward Buffington, of Fall 
River, John W. Foster, of Brinitield, Henry H. Bugg, of Dennis, Andrew A. 
Bichniond, of Adams, and Augustus C. Carey, of Ipswich, were chosen the del- 
egates to the national council in June next at Philadelphia. A. B. Ely, Esq., 
made an anti-slaver}' Know Nothing speech. Strong anti-slavery resolves were 
passed in the evening without a dissenting vote. Siiiue who were hunkerish 
hitherto admitted it was no use — the order must take anti-slavery (ground. 

" It is evident from the action of the council, if it is correctly reported, that 
the anti-slavery men in the Order have the power, and will use it, to put down 
whoever shall set himself against the anti-slavery sentiment of the State." 

The Courier, that staunch Whig organ of the true Daniel Webster type, 
then adds, and we commend its testimony to the Southern Whigs : 

" As from the beginning, we have never looked upon the Know Nothing or- 
ganization in this State in any other light than as an organization which was 
controlled entirely by abolitionism, we are not at all surprised at the" result of 
the election, which is fairly set forth in the latter paragraph from the 2'elegraph. 
Jonathan Pierce, who voted against the adoption of the Loring resolves, is su- 
perseded in the office of president by an Abolitionist, and Messrs. Warren, of 
the Senate, and MuUin, of the House, who voted the same way, have been most 
unceremoniously discarded. No person who voted in the negative upon that 
matter has been rechosen, and the leaders of the party are determined to make 
the Order in Massachusetts thoroughly anti-slavery. How they are to fellow- 
ship with the anti-Seward ' Hindoos' of New York*, and with such men as Mr. 
Sollers, of Maryland, and Mr. Ligon, of Virginia, will be known when they 
meet in national council." 

THE KNOW NOTHINGS OF NEW HAMPSHIRE TAKE SIDES WITH FRED. DOUG- 
LASS AND THOS. JAMES, FREE NEGROES AND FREE SOILERS. 

The American party of this State have, in State Council, adopted resolutions 
protesting against the repeal of the IMissouri Compromise, and against the Ne- 
braska bill and Fugitive Slave Law, and pledging the party to resist the further 
extension of slavery. 

The following are the resolutions passed by the State Council, at a meeting 
held at Concord, on the first and second days of May. They are published by 
a vote of the Council : 

Whereas, there appear to exist in the minds of a portion of the community 
some doubts as to the position of the American party in regard to slavery and 
its extension over new territories, therefore. 

Resolved, That the American organization, as constituted and existing in 
New Hampshire, is not based on one idea alone, but comprehends every princi- 
ple that will promote the political welfare of a free people. 

Resolved, That the declaration of Independence, the tones and deeds of the 
founders of the Republic, all indicate that our forefathers intended that slavery 
should be sectional, not national — temporary, not permanent. 



236 

Resolved, That as a political party, pledged to regard and watch over the 
best interests of the whole Union, and to labor for its integrity and perpetuity, 
we solemnly protest against the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, the Kan- 
sas-Nebraska bill, and the Fugitive Slave law, as violations of the sp rit of the 
Constitution, and tending to disunion and the destruction of the free institu- 
tions of the country. 

Resolved, That we never will, under any circumstances, consent to the ad- 
mission of slavery into any portion of the territory embraced in the compact of 
1820, and from which it was then excluded by the mutual agreement of both 
the Northern and Southern States. 

Resolved, That any attempt to commit the American party of New Hamp- 
shire to the advancement of the interest of slavery, to ignore it as a political 
question, or to enjoin silence upon us in regard to its evils and encroachments, 
deserves and shall receive our earnest and .unqualified disapprobation. 

ELECTION OF A KNOW NOTHING GOVERNOR IN CONNECTICUT — CIS OPPOSI- 
TION TO THE KANS.\S-NEBRASKA ACT. 

The Legislature of Connecticut last Thursday elected Wm. T. Minor, Amer- 
ican, for Governor for the ensuing year. The vote was as follov/s : Minor, 
117 ; Ingraham, (dem.,) 70. 

The telegraph says that the message of the Governor recommends that the 
proposed amendment to the constitution extending the right of suffrage to 
colored persons, and requiring persons to be able to read and write before be- 
ing admitted as electors, be allowed to go to the people. He considers that, 
in the retent election, the people reiterated their emphatic condemnation of 
the act organizing the Territories of Nebraska and Kansas. He enters largely 
into the consideration of the pernicious influence arising from the extent and 
character of the foreign immigration. 



SENATOR WILSON, OF MASSACHUSETTS, STILL AS THOROUGH 
A KNOW NOTHING- AS VILE AN ABOLITIONIST, AND THE 
ALLEGATION THAT HE HAS ABANDONED THE ORGANIZA- 
TION PRONOUNCED A FALSEHOOD AND A FORGERY. 

When the notorious Henry Wilson was first elected Senator of the United 
Statesby Hiss and his brethren of the '■'■ Amen'cini" party in the Massachu- 
setts Legislature, the Southern Know Nothing press vociferated with one 
united voice his soundness on the Slavery question. 

The new Senator soon dashed these fine asseverations by attending a lecture 
of Burlingame, the Abolitionist, in Boston, and volunteering to endorse with 
savage emphasis, as cruel as it was defiant and insulting to his Southern adula- 
tors, every word that lecturer had said in a rabid, red hot abolition diatribe. 

This was not enough to satisfy the more incredulous and infatuated of his 
Southern admirers, and when Senator Henry Wilson, the Abolitionist and 
leader of the " American" party, reached Washington, one of the high priests 
of the Councils of the Order there, sought him out, conversed with him cheek 
by jowl in a long sitting, discovered to his great delight that the Boston Sena- 
tor was a great stickler for State Rights, and at once addressed him a letter en- 
quiring his views on the whole subject of inter State and federal and State 
interference. 

The reply was written, and was very full and explicit in proclaiming doc- 
trines of State Rights, coupled and combined with ill-disguised Abolitionism 
cf the most rabid sort. Forthwith, a few of the Southern Know Nothing 



press began to cluira Wilson as safe and trustworthy on State Rights principles, 
notwithstanding his eudorseniont of Ikirlinganie ; but the knowing ones, more 
astute than the common herd, discovered a cat in the meal. The State Kighta 
doctrines of Wilson sounded grateful enough ; but the legs and claws and head 
and teeth of Abolitionism were too apparent, and they advised against meddling 
with Wilson. 

It turns out since, by the by, that the advocacy of State Ilights principles as 
laid down in the Know Nothing basis platform, bas suddenly become a univer- 
sal thing among the Abolitionists. They are driven to assort those doctrines, 
as they construe them, as the only means of nnlllfijinfj the Fugitive Slave Law 
in the free States. There is a notable difference, however, between their doc- 
trine of State Rights and the Virginia doctrine. They assert the right of the 
States to the exclusive regulation of all their affairs notwithstandiiKj the Fede- 
ral Constitution: whereas the true Virginia doctrine asserts the right of the 
States to regulate their internal affairs under the Constitution strictly con- 
strued. 

The vapid and meaningless generalities of the State Rights clause in the 
Know Nothing basis of principles render that article acceptable to the most 
violent Abolitionists of the North, while they tend to beguile into a false se- 
curity and confidence tbe honest members of the Order at the South. Gid- 
diugs himself is a State Rights man in the radical, Abolition sense of the word, 
as well as Wilson. Every vile Aolitionist of the North endorses the Know 
Nothing article of faith upon this subject. 

Well, revenons a moutons, Wilson's State Rights letter of February last, 
written in Washington, to Vespasian Ellis, afforded a crumb of comfort to his 
Southern confreres, the less scrupulous of whom pronounced him safe though an 
Abolitionist; and so the matter stood until sometime after the adjournment 
of Congress, and Wilson's return home, when this State Rights Know Nothing 
and Abolition Senator broke out afresh somewhere in Massachusetts with the 
most fierce and vindictive declarations of Abolitionism and hatred to the South. 

Of course nothing was left to his Southern Know Nothing " brethi-oi" but to 
repudiate him outright. And that was done in a summary and convenient 
manner; for, in the great secret laboratory of lies which Sam operates some- 
where underground, a paragraph was concocted, which is found below, for gen- 
eral circulation through the Southern Know Nothing papers, alleging that Wil- 
son had denounced and renounced the " Ameriean party" as " perilous to the 
anti-slavery sentiment." The forged paragraph was attributed to the Boston 
I'elejrajih, and quoted by all of Sam's journals in Virginia as from that news- 
paper. Many of them were hoaxed — badly hoaxed — we are sure ; but some 
of them must have hQGu pnrticeps criminis in the falsehood and forgery. It is 
incumbent upon them all to make their peace with an honest public by explain- 
ing the fact of their palming the forgery upon their readers. 

Now read the following extract from the Boston Tekyrajih itself, in its issue 
of Friday, May 4, 1855. The italics are its own : 

" The latest manoeuvre of the Know Nothings in Virginia, consists in a rep- 
resentation that Senator Wilson of this State has abandoned the organization. 
We find the following in the Petersburg ( Va.) Intcllujencer : 

* But our object in writing this article was not to discuss the comparative un- 
worthiness of Wilson and Sumner, but to congratulate the American party 
upon the welcome intelligence that has reached us of the abandonment of their 
ranks by this man Wilson. The Boston Telegraph is first rate authority on * 
this point, for it is the Abolition organ in Massachusetts, and a special admirer 
of VVilson. What will the anti-Americans of the Wise school say to the fol- 
lowing refreshing and cheering announcement ? We give it to them as a sweet 
morsel to roll under their tongues : 



238 

SENATOR WILSON DENOUNCES THE AMERICAN PARTY. 
[From the Boston Telegraph.] 

' Gen. Wilson gave the closing lecture of the anti-slavery course, last eve- 
ning, at the Temple. He explained for himself the position with regard to 
slavery that he had occupied for twenty years, and called upon all to oppose 
any party that should try to smother the anti-slavery sentiment. He assumed 
that this course had been the death of the two great parties, and must be of 
the other parti/ now formal^. He said this ixirtjj was perilous to the anti- 
slavery sentiment, and called upon the anti-slavery party to kill off the American 
dough faces, as they had the others. 

' Let it be remembered by the people of Virginia that Senator Wil.son has 
within the last ten days publicly proclaimed in Boston that the Amer lean part t/ 
was perilous to the anti-slaver// sentiment! Put this in you pipes and smoke it 
at your leisure, ye devotees of Henry A. Wise !' 

Gen. Wilson has never made ani/ such declaration as is ahove attributed to 
him, and the extract ivhich is credited to the Boston Telei/rai^h never appeared 
in this p)aper until now. We are unable to say whether it is a forgery, or 
whether it did appear in one of the other Boston papers. — Boston Telegraph. 

Such is the indignant repudiation, by the Boston Telegraph itself, of this 
unblushing fabrication ; and the appointment, by the Know Nothing State 
Council of Massachusetts, last week, at Boston, of this same Henry Wilson as 
one of their delegates to the Philadelphia National Convention, finishes the 
whole story. We have already published the following announcement : 

Boston, May 2. — The Know Nothing State Convention met this evening, 
and was largely attended, and its action was decidedly anti-slavery. Governor 
Gardner and Senator Henry Wilson are among the delegates appointed to attend 
the Know Nothing Convention to be held in Philadelphia in June. A. B. 
Ely made an anti-slavery Know Nothing speech. Strong anti-slavery resolu- 
tions were passed, and it is generally admitted that the Order must take posi- 
tion upon the anti-slavery platform. 

Wilson, the Abolitionist, is not only still in full communion with the Order, 
but one of its chosen and most exalted exponents. He will meet the delegates 
from Virginia at the approaching National Convention, and will there maintain 
the necessity of Abolitionizing the Order, and " taking position upon the anti- 
slavery platform." We shall sec whether he succeeds ; and we have this to 
say, that if delegates from the Virginia Councils shall consent to sit in delibe- 
ration with Wilson and his Abolition colleagues from the North, it will be an 
insult to Judas Iscariot to call them traitors. 

JUDGE IT BY ITS FRUITS. 

t 

If — according to it the only boon it asked in the outset — we judge it by its 
fruits, it can only be pronounced a rabid Abolition and Freesoil party every- 
where North of the Potomac — which is everywhere that it has borne fruit at 
all. The triumph in which it won the greatest eclat was the election of Pollock, 
in Pennsylvania, over Gov. Bigler, the Democrat and leading champion in that 
State of the Nebraska-Kansas act. In the first Message of this first eleve of 
the Order, and as the first fruit of the tree, he denounced the Nebraska Bill as 
"an attempt to extend the institution of slavery," and " a, violation of the 
plifhted faith and honor of thje country ;" expressed his " opposition to the 
extension of slavery into territory now free 5" demanded for the fugitive slave 
« the trial by jury and the writ of habeas corpus f and summed up his farrago 



239 

of abolition with the declaration that all these abominable incendiarisms were 
sanctioned by his election. To fill up the cup of disgust and execration as to 
Pennsylvania, a Know Nothing member of the Legislature at Harrisburg, bating 
the South more tban the foreigner, and by way of demonstrating his conviction 
that'the black race whom the South enslaves, are more capable of citizenship than 
men of his own color and blood, introduced a bill for giving " all male colored 
persons, of African or mixed blood, all political, civil and religious rights as 
fully and amply as they are held and enjoyed by any person or persons" in that 
Commonwealth. 

As to the State of New York, the news is gone abroad that many of the Free- 
soil members of the Order have determined to secure the re-election of Seward 
to the Senate, by casting the requisite number of Know Nothing votes in his 
favor ; and the bitter deprecations of the New York Herald of so damning a 
result, confirm the well-grounded apprehension. 

In Ohio, the complicity of the Order with the worst enemies of the South in 
the recent elections is notorious. The Slate Journal, organ of the Frccsoil, fu- 
sion party in the State, declares and avows in plain terms : ' . 

" So far, in this State, and in the free States generally, Me '' Know Nothuigs" 
have co-oj)rraied and worked failh/idli/ whli the antl-NehrasJca and anti-slaceri/ 
feeling of the jicoplc. They have shown themselves true republicans by casting 
their tceJfjht imijormli/ in favor of freedom." 

In Massachusetts, which seems to be as emphatically the cradle of treason in 
this its day of infamy, as it was the cradle of liberty in the day of its honor, 
the Order has elected a lowbred, presumptuous, unlettered Jack Cade to the 
Executive office; and elected to the Legislature, some sixty out of those three 
thousand and fifty clergymen of New England, who last year protested against 
the Nebraska Bill, and threatened Congress with the vengeance of Almighty 
God for meditating a simple act of justice to the South. This Governor Gard- 
ner — the seedy fruit of this tree of evil — makes haste in his first message to 
urge the restoration of the Missouri Compromise, and to claim for the fugitive 
negro tlie writ of haheas corjncs and the trial by jury — in the same breath that 
he urges the disbanding of that very Irish soldiery who defied the rescuers of 
Burns, anathamatizes foreigners in bad English, and urges the dispidsion of 
every foreign language from popular use as tending to preserve — horrible to re- 
late I — " unassimilating elements of character." 

'< JacJc Cade. Fellow Kings, that Lord Say has gelded the Commonwealth, 
and made it an eunuch; and, more than that, he can speak French, and there- 
fore is a traitor. 

'' Stafford. 0, gross and miserable ignorance. 

*' Cade. Nay, answer, if you can ; the Frenchmen are our enemies : go to, 
then, I ask but this : can he that speaks with the tongue of an enemy be a good 
counsellor, or no ? 

^' Dick, Smith'and all. No, no; and therefore we'll have his head." 

This Legislature of Massachusetts, composed of tliree hundred and seventh-six 
Know Nothings to one Democrat, have elected Henry Wilson, one of the most 
rabid Freesoil demagogues in all New England, to the Federal Senate, as the 
successor of Edward Everett. In the Know Nothing caucus which decreed the 
election of Wilson to the Senate, the chief officer of the Order in Massachusetts 
avowed that they were, ''all FreescUersf and other members asseverated that 
the overwhelming success of the Order in the elections of that State had been 
due ''to tJie jMSsat/e of the iniquitous jVchraska hill." 

The evidence of the complicity of this Secret Order with the enemies of the 
South in the Northern States is overwhelming and irresistible. The Southern 
man who refuses to believe a fact attested by such palpable results — who refuses 



240 

to accept the Order's own challenge, and to judge it by potent and notorious 
facts — is willingly blind to the truth, and like the five living brethren of Dives 
in hell, would not be persuaded though one rose from the dead. 

The Hon. L. M. Keitt, of South Carolina, in a speech delivered in the House 
of Representatives on the 3rd of January 1855, thus strongly arrays the evi- 
dence of the identity of the Abolition and the Know Nothing parties of New 
England. 

What, too, have been the practical results of this new party ? In Massachu- 
setts alone it has been victorious through its own strength ; and what see we 
there? Is not the abolition and free-soil flag the only one flying ? How stand 
its members elect ? I read an extract from the correspondent of the National 
Era (an abolition paper) of November 23, 1853. The writer is stated to be 
John G. Whittier, co-editor, I believe, of the Era, and a distinguished aboli- 
tionist of Massachusetts, who, as much as any man, is booked up in reference to 
its politics, particularly freesoil : 

" C. L. Knapp, of the eight district, is an old liberty-man, true as steel. 
DeWitt in the Worcester district, Trafton in the eleventh, Comius in the fourth, 
Damrell in the third, and Burlingame in the fifth district, are also free-soilers. 
N. P. Banks, Jr., is triumphantly re-elected from the seventh district against 
the combined opposition of the Pierce democracy and the whigs. He goes back 
to Washington an anti-administration fusionist. Buffington, of the second dis- 
trict, and Morris, of the tenth, are reliable anti-slavery whigs. Of Davis, of 
the sixth, and Hall, of the first, we have no very definite knowledge. 

" Gardner, the governor elect, stands openly pledged against the Nebraska 
fraud and the fugitive-slave law. His past history has been evidently that of a 
pro-slavery whig ; but we speak now only of his present position. Brown, lieu- 
tenant governor, is a free-soil democrat and fusionist. Of the senators and rep- 
resentatives elected, enough is known to be tolerably certain that a reliable man 
will be chosen to the United States Senate, and eifectual provision made for pro- 
tecting the inhabitants of the State against the fugitive-slave hunt." 

Thus have acted the Know Nothings of Massachusetts. How spoke they. I 
will read the resolutions of a Know Nothing cuuvcution in Norfolk, Massachu- 
setts : 

" Resolved, That we hail with hope and joy the recent brilliant successes of the 
republican party in the States of Maine, Iowa, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, 
and we trust those victories are a foreshadow of others soon to come, by which 
the free States shall present one solid phalanx of opposition to the aggression of 
slavery. 

" Resolved, That in the present chaotic condition of parties in Massachusetts, 
the only star above the horizon is the love of human liberty and the abhorrence 
of slavery, and that it is the duty of anti-slavery men to rally around the repub- 
lican party as an organization which invites the united action of the people on 
the one transcending question of slave dominion which now divides the Union." 

" Whereas Roman Catholicism and slavery being alike founded and supported 
on the basis of ignorance and tyranny, and being, therefore, natural allies in 
every warfare against liberty and enlightenment : therefore, be it 

" Resolved, That there can exist no real hostilitj' to Roman Catholicism which 
does not embrace slavery, its natural co-worker in opposition to freedom and re- 
publican institutions." 

How spoke Gardner, their governor elect, in reply to the charge that he had 
aided in the rendition of Burns ? He says, in a letter to Mr. Wilson, a free- 
soil leader? 



241 

"Were the ssme charge made against yourself, it could not be more ground- 
less than it is against nie. The power of language does not permit me to ex- 
press the utter loathing I have for the conduct attributed to me. Far sooner 
would I be the poor quivering wretch on the road again to the agony of bon- 
dage than a volunteer guard to aid in his return. He who invented the charge 
grossly slandered me; they who repeat it, or believe it, do not know mo. 

" It is not true that I am, or have ever been, in favor of the fugitive-slave 
bill. I never voted for a man who favored it, knowing such to be his views, 
and I must very much change before I ever do. I never, by word, act, or vote, 
favored its passage, and I am an advocate of its essential modification, or, in 
lieu thereof, its unconditional repeal. ]leturning from Canada last June, I 
read in the cars that there was a petition for its repeal at the Exchange News 
Koom, and on my arrival, before even going to my place of business, I hastened 
to the Exchange, and signed the petition." 

Among the most prominent leaders of the Know Nothing party in Massa- 
chusetts, in 1855, was the Hon. Amos Burlingame, now a member of Congress 
from that State. 

The Boston Telegraph, of the 3rd of February 1855, gave the following 
sketch of the anti-slavery lecture delivered by that gentleman at the Tremont 
Temple, on the evening of the 2d of February : 

Before introducing Mr. Burlingame, Dr. Howe stated that a letter had been 
received frotn Hon. N. P. Banks, in which he announced hisinability to deliver 
any lecture in the anti-slavery course, on account of the necessity for his pre- 
sence at Washington during the coming week. In his place Frederick Douglass 
has been engaged for nest week. 

Mr. Burlingame was received with hearty applause. He commenced by say- 
ing, that in speaking for freedom lie should not be choice in the selection of 
terms by which to cliaracterize slavery. Slavery had betrayed us, and the time- 
bad come for an outraged people to express their sentiments in language not to 
be misunderstood. Mr. B. ascribed the origin of slavery to Pope IMartin V., 
who issued a bull sanctioning African slavery. It was also sanctioned by seve- 
ral of bis successors. It was brought to this country under the cross, and in 
the garb of humanity, but it never was sanctioned here by positive law. He 
then asked what is slavery ? In the language of Wesley he would answer, 
" The sum of all villanies." The fitness of this description was then shown by 
a reference to facts. Our fathers hated ii, and hoped it would soon die away. 
But Colten gave it a pecuniary power, and the slave representation a political 
power, which has controlled the whole country, and prevented its advancement. 
But for its influence, this nation of twenty-five millions would have been forty 
millions. The prosperity of the North was contrasted with the poverty of the 
South. The idea of force being used by the South to extend slavery was ridi- 
culed. The power of the South is a political one, and with that she has smittea 
our commerce, our manufactures, and every interest of freedom. The very 
nullification buttons worn by the South Carolinians in 1832 were made in 
Connecticut, and their cannon came from Woonsncket, and were cast ofi" guns 
<it that. lie alluded to the mobbing of Judge ^ Hoar in Charleston, and the 
neglect of the government to protect hira and the cause he represented, while 
to enforce an odious law in this city, a cannon manned by aliens was planted ia 
Court square, while our own brothers were called out by illegal orders to be a 
body guard to them. Some, he said, censured the soldiers on that occasion, 
but the censures should rather fall on those who issued the illegal orders. On. 
the chief magistrate they had already fallen like a thunderbolt. In this con- 
nection Dr. .Adams was spoken of as being disloyal to every Northern senti- 
10 



242 

ment. The means by which slavery has secured the control of the general 
government were then spoken of. The men of the South are men of one 
idea. They make politics their study, while at North the reverse is true. As 
a remedy for all this, we must study politics. He could not agree with Wen- 
dell Phillips in his plan of dissolving the Union, nor with Ralph Waldo Emer- 
son in his proposition to purchase the slaves, as a remedy for slavery. If asked 
to state specifically what he would do, he would answer — 1st, repeal the Ne- 
braska bill ; 2d, repeal the fugitive slave law ; 3d, abolish slavery in the dis- 
trict of Columbia; 4th, abolish the inter-State slave trade; next he would de- 
clare that slavery should not spread to one inch of the territory of the Union ; 
he would then put the government actually and perpetually on the side of free- 
dom — by which he meant that a bright-eyed boy in Massachusetts should have 
as good a chance for promotion in the navy" as a boy of one of the first families 
in Virginia. He would have our foreign consuls take side with the noble Kos- 
suth and against the papal butcher Bedini. He would have judges who believe 
in a higher law, and in anti-slavery constitution, an anti-slavery Bible and an 
anti-slavery God ! Having thus denationalized slavery, he would not menace 
it in the States where it exists, but would say to the States, it is your local in- 
stitution ; hug it to your bosoms until it destroys you. But he would say you 
must let our freedom alone. (Applause ) If you do but touch the hem of 
the garment of freedom we will trample you to the earth. (Loud applause.) 
This is the only position of repose, and it must come to this. He was en- 
couraged by the recent elections in the North, and he defended the " new move- 
ment," which he said was born of Puritan blood, and was against despotism of 
all kinds. This new party should be judged, like others, by its fruits. It had 
elected a champion of freedom to the United States Senate for four years, to 
till the place of a man who was false to freedom and not true to slavery. For 
himself he could say that so long as life dwelt in his bosom, so long would he 
fight for liberty and against slavery. In conclusion, he expressed the hope 
that soon the time might come when the sun should not rise on a master nor set 
on a slave. 

It will be recollected that Henry Wilson was elected to the United States 
Senate by the Know Nothing members of the Legislature of Massachusetts. 

Upon the occasion of Mr. Burlingame's lecture, in response to a call from the 
audience, he responded as follows : 

3Ir. Chairman and Ladies and Gentlemen'. — This is not the time nor the 
place for me to utter a word. You have listened to the eloquence of my young 
friend, and here to night I endorse every sentiment he has uttered. In public 
or in private life, in majorities or in minorities, at home or abroad, I intend to 
live and to die with unrelenting hostility to slavery on my lips. I make no 
compromises anywhere, at home or abroad. I shall yield nothing of my anti- 
slavery sentiments to advance my own personal interests, to advance party inte- 
rests, or to meet the demands of any State or section of our country. I hope 
to be able to maintain on all occasions these principles, to comprehend in my 
affections the whole country and the people of the whole country, and when I 
say the whole country, I want everybody to understand that I include in that 
term Massachusetts and the North. This is not the time for me to detain you. 
You have called on me most unexpectedly to say a word, and having done so, I 
will retire, thanking you for the honor of this occasion. 

The ^^ American Organ^" the central organ of the Know Nothing party of "* 
the United States, published at Washington, thus endorsed the senator from 
Massachusetts : 



243 

We know too little of the antecedent of Mr. Wilson, to say that he has or has 
not been hitherto regarded as a freesoiler in his political proclivities, but we do 
know enough to say that within the last year a mighty revolution has been in 
progress, and that thousands upon thousands have abandoned their former poli- 
tical platform, and now stand upon the national platform of the " American 
party !" We know, also, that our friends, as well in Massachusetts as here, 
believe that whatever may have been the former opinions of Mr. Wilson, he 
will now sustain the National platform of our party. 

But again : The " American Reformation," now in progress, is sustained by 
men of all the various political complexions that have existed in our country. 
All meet and harmonize upon the great platform of the American party, with- 
out enquiry into the antecedents of any member of this party. Whoever binds 
himself to sustain the principles of our party, becomes an "American," and is 
admitted into full communion with <' Americans." We have formed this party 
on the basis of a total abandonment of all former party ties, and the adoption 
of a common standard of faith and action. 

Who, then, shall deny the right of Mr. Wilson, or of any other man, to 
leave other affiliations, and to associate with men who are pledged to sustain 
" American" doctrines, and to repudiate former affiliations ? 

We freely welcome all patriotic Americans into our ranks, and we only ask 
that they adopt and carry into practice our " American principles," and stand 
firmly upon our American platform. That Mr. Wilson, as an '' American" 
senator, will faithfully and firmly adhere to our principles, we entertain no man- 
ner of doubt. 

We copy from the Washington correspondent of the Philaclelplila North 
American, the points which Hon. Henry Wilson elaborated in a speech delivered 
in the Senate of the United States, soon after his entrance into that body ; 

" He wishes the fugitive act repealed. 

'' He wishes slavery in the District of Columbia abolished. 

" He wishes the Wilraot proviso established. 

" He wishes all new slave States excluded. 

" He wishes all connection between the general government and slavery 
abolished. 

" He wishes agitation of slavery continued until these objects are accom- 
plished. 

" He understands these views to correspond with those of the Know Nothings 
as a party, so far as they have taken any position on the question." 

The Richmond Enquirer, speaking of the Abolitionism of Senator Wilson, 
and of the Massachusetts Know Nothings, presented the evidence upon which 
it based its charges in the following forcible manner. 

Now, let us examine what mighty reasons the South has to "rejoice" over 
the election of such a man. The Boston Courier, one of the most respectable 
Whig papers in the country, says of Wilson, the Senator elect : 

" He does not renounce one iota of the ultra Ahol it ion principles v:hich lie has 
Ifen inculcating throit'jliout his political career, and h;j which lie has approached 
his ji resent eminence, but he adopts certain vague ideas, which may be holden 
by men of any party, and sends them forth as the sum and substance of his 
conversion to Americanism." 



244 

The Boston Advertiser, another influential Whig paper, questions Wilson's 
claims to be regarded as an exponent of the principles of the new "American" 
organization ; for in one of his speeches he asserted distinctly, "I care nothing 
about the place where a man was born," and he was enthusiastic in the recep- 
tion of Kossuth, an "imported political demagogue," a class of people who, 
the Know Nothing Governor Gardner says, should be discouraged. Again, in 
the summer of 1852, the Freesoil National Convention at Pittsburg, of which 
Gen. Wilson ivas President, unanimously adopted the following resolution : 

'•'Eesolved, That 'emigrants and exiles from the Old World should find a 
cordial v:elcorne to homes of comfort and fields of enterprise in the new ; and 
every attemjd to ahridyc their 'privilefje of hecgminj citizens and oivncrs of the 
soil aviovij us, oiujlu to he resisted luilh wftexible determination.' " 

It seems, therefore, that it was Wilson's unadulterated oloJitionism that 
cleansed him of his anti-" American" principles, and secured his election. This 
is farther made manifest by the developments in the Know Nothing caucus to 
nominate an United States Senator. We have once before published these start- 
ling facts, but we do so again, to refute the Jesuitical efforts of Southern Know 
Nothing organs to blind the South to the damning anti-slavery movements of 
their New England " American" allies : 

"Mr. Prince of Essex took the floor. He spoke strongly in favor of Gen. 
Wilson'.s election, and deprecated any yielding to the South upon this ques- 
tion. 

" Senator Pillsbury of Hampden, humorously alluded in medical terms to 
the pumping process which had been made by the Senator from Suffolk (War- 
ren) on Wilson. It would seem that he was not .satisfied with what he pumped 
out; but, to his mind, the candidate came out of that contest as bright as light 
from a taper, and he might say, " Get thee behind me, tempter." Ilelative to 
the argument of the Senator from jMiddlesex, (Baker) he wished to say that he, 
nor no man from his section, could have come here, if he had been only an 
American. It v:as hecaiim the parti/ was anti- Slavery, us iceU as American, 
that it had (jot the majority. 

"Jonathan Pierce, Esq., the head of the Order in Massachusetts, next spoke. 
It had been said if he opposed Wilson, he himself would be ruined. He 
thanked God, no party of men had power to do that to him. He only wished 
Gen. Wilson was as good a Native American as himself. It had been said this 
Free Soil movement would cut us vj> ; I doubt \i, for ice are all Free Sailers 
owselvcs. He had been advised to close the doors and keep certain men out 
of the Order. He had .said no — .let them all come in. A man is not a Senator 
for a single State, he is a Senator of the whole Union. 

" J. Q. Griffin, Esq., of Charlestown, said : Now, relative to Wilson's ante- 
cedents, he submitted there was no statute of limitations bearing upon the posi- 
tion or sentiments of members of this party. There was as much need of this 
party before last year as during that year. And he would say, and all would 
bear him out, that if it had not been for the passage of the infamous Nebraska 
bill, and the utter meanness of Pierce's National Administration, the revolution 
•would not have so speedily taken place, though it might have come in time. 
He wanted a man right on this question — the one now prominent, worthy to 
stand by the side of CHARLES SUMNER !" 

Here is one of the sweet "fruits of the mighty revolution," over which the 
Washington Organ " rejoices," and which has sent to the U. S. Senate an abo- 
litionist, " worthy to stand hy the side of Ciiarles Sumner !" Will not Vir- 
ginians turn away, with alarm and disgust, from an association whose Northern 
brethren perpetrate such monstrous acts and are whitewashed therefor, by 
Southern Know Nothing organs ? 



245 

Among the first triumphs of the Know Nothings, were the election of their 
gubernatorial candidates in the States of Pennsylvania and Delaware; and in the 
inaugural addresses of Governor Pollock of Pennsylvania, and of Governor 
Causey of Delaware, we have the first official enunciation of the doctrines of 
the anti-slavery Know Nothings of the free states. We therefore publish ex- 
tracts from their inaugural addresses : 

INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF GOVERNOR TOLLOCK, OF PENNSYLVANIA, TUESDAY, 

JAN. 16, 1855. 

* , * * * * * 

Republican institutions arc the ])ride, and justly the glory of our country. 
To enjoy them is our privilege, to maintain them our duty. Civil and religious 
liberty— freedom of speech and of the press, the rights of conscience and freedom 
of worship — are the birthright and the boast of the American citizen. _ No royal 
edict, no pontifical decree, can restrain or destroy them. In the enjoyment of 
these blessings, the rich and the poor, the high and the low. meet together— the 
constitution, in its full scope and ample devehipmeut, shields and protects them 
all. When these rights are assailed, these privileges endangered, either by mad 
ambition, or by influences foreign to the true interests of the nation,^ and at war 
with love of country— that noble impulse of the American heart, which prompts 
it to revere home and native land as sacred objects of its affections — it is then 
the ballot box in its omnipotence, speaking in thunder tones the will of the peo- 
ple, rebukes the wrong, and vindicates the freedom of the man — the indepen- 
dence of the citizen. To the American people have these blessings been com- 
mitted as a sacred trust ; they are, and must ever be, their guardians and de- 
fenders. The American citizen, independent and free, uninfluenced by partizau 
attachments, unawed by ecclesiastical authority or ghostly intolerance — in the 
strength of fearless manhood, and in the bold assertion of his rights— should ex- 
hibit'^to the world a living illustration pf the superior benefits of American repub- 
licanism ; proclaiming a true and single allegiance to his country, and to no other 
power but " the God that makes and preserves us as a nation." 

Virtue, intelligence and truth are the foundation of our republic. By these 
our institutions and privileges can and will be preserved. Ignorance is not 
the mother of patriotism, or of republics. It is the enemy and destroyer of 
both. Education, in its enlightening, elevating and reforming infiuences, in the 
full power of its beneficent results, should be encouraged by the State. Not 
that mere intellectual culture that leaves the mind a moral waste, unfit to un- 
derstand the duties of the man or citizen, but that hither education, founded 
upon, directed, and controlled by sound and elevated moral principle — that re- 
cognizes the Bible as the foundation of true knowledge, as the text-book alike 
of the child and the American statesman, and as the great charter and bulwark 
of civil and religious freedom. The knowledge thus acquired is the proper con- 
servative of States and nations ; more potent in its energy to uphold the insti- 
tutions of freedom and the rights of man, than armies and navies ia their proud- 
est strength. 

The framers of our constitution understood this, and wisely provided for the 
establishment of schools and " the promotion of the arts and sciences, in one or 
more seminaries of learning," that the advantages of education might be enjoyed 
by all. 

To improve the efficiency of this system, not only by perfecting our common 
schools, but by encouraging and aiding "one or more" higher literary institu- 
tions, in which teachers can be trained and qualified ; and to increase the fund 
appropriated to educational purposes, are objects which will at all times receive 
my willing approval. Money liberally, yet wisely, expended in the pursuit and 



246 

promotion of knowledge, is true economy. The integrity of this system and 
its fund must be preserved. No division of this fund for political or sectarian 
purposes should ever be made or attempted. To divide is to destroy. Party 
and sectarian jealousies would be engendered; the unity and harmony of the 
system destroyed, and its noble objects frustrated and defeated. Bigotry might 
rejoice, patriotism would weep over such a result. 

* t. * * * * * t- 

Pennsylvania, occupying as she does an important and proud position in the 
sisterhood of States, cannot be indifferent to the policy and acts of the national 
government. Her voice, potential for good in other days, ought not to be dis- 
regarded now. Devoted to the Constitution and the Union — as she was the first 
to sanction, she will be the last to endanger the one or violate the other. Re- 
garding with jealous care the rights of her sister States, she will be ever ready 
to defend her own. The blood of her sons, poured out on the many battle fields 
of the revolution, attests her devotion to the great principles of American free- 
dom — the centre-truth of American republicanism. To the constitution in all 
its integrity; to the Union in its strength and harmony; to the maintenance in 
its purity, of the faith and honor of our country. Pennsylvania now is, and 
always has been, pledged — a pledge never violated, and not to be violated, until 
patriotism ceases to be a virtue, and liberty to be known only as a name. 

Entertaining these sentiments, and actuated by an exclusive desire to promote 
the peace, harmony and welfare of our beloved country, the recent action of the 
National Congress and Executive, in repealing a solemn compromise, only less 
sacred in public estimation than the constitution itself — thus attempting to ex- 
tend the institution of domestic slavery in the territorial domain of the nation, 
violating the plighted faith and honor of the country, arousing sectional jealou- 
sies, and renewing the agitation of vexed and distracting questions — has received 
from the people of our own and other States of the Union, their stern and mer- 
ited rebuke. 

With no desire to restrain the full and entire constitutional rights of the 
States, nor to interfere directly or indirectly with their domestic institutions, 
the people of Pennsylvania, iu view of the repeal of the Missouri compromise, 
the principle involved in it, and the consequences resulting from it, as marked 
already by fraud, violence and strife, have re-affirmed their opposition to the ex- 
tension of slavery into territory now free, and renewed their pledge " to the 
doctrines of the act of 1780, which relieved us by constitutional means from a 
grievous social evil ; to the great ordinance of 1787, in its full scope and all its 
beneficient principles; to the protection of the personal rights of every human 
being under the constitution of Pennsylvania, and the constitution of the United 
States, by maintaining inviolate the trial by jury, and the writ of habeas cor- 
pus; to the assertion of the due rights of the North as well as of the South, 
and to the integrity of the Union." 

The declaration of these doctrines is but the recognition of the fundamental 
principles of freedom and human rights. They are neither new nor startling. 
They were taught by patriotic fathers at the watchfires of our country's defen- 
ders, and learned amid the bloody snows of Valley Forge and the mighty throes 
of war and revolution. They were stamped with indelible impress upon the 
great charter of our rights, and embodied in the legislation of the best and 
purest days of the republic ; have filled the hearts, and fell burning from the 
lips of orators and statesmen, whose memories are immortal as the principles 
they cherished. They have been the watchword and the hope of millions who 
have gone before us — are the watchword and hope of millions now, and will be 
of millions yet unborn. 

In many questions of national and truly American policy, the due protection 
of American labor and industry against the depressing influence of foreign labor 



247 



and capital-tbc improvement of l.r --s jd harlo.^^^^^^ ^e^..ce.- 

the equitable distribution o ^l- proceeds of th<3pubhc^^^^ 

uio'tioD every encouragement should be given. 

..AUOUKA. ADBKESS 0. OOV. P.»B r C«S|y, OP DELAWARE, AT DOVEK, 

JANUARY Id, iOOO. 



5!C * * 



A:.he J... of a g»„ant and patrioUe people-as U. ^^^Z:^. 
a Stale, whose spirit and genius, and °»' ""'^ '"^''f °"' j ^^„^^ „e to corn- 
mined her position in the national -^-'^<=- ' ™te tent" election in this 

s-z:^.LTir,jtTopuf ^^^ 
r:i^^:^^eh'::rni-?tn:iire":£:t:;^iL^^^^^ 

it the community and its interest.-may -«;^;P2^^\^^\',",2^^^^^^^^^ the^trug- 
We have seen a re-assertion of the declarat on ^^^.^teople of Delaware to be 
gle for independence. It v;ould be ^"{;^^f ^^;;,.^,^: P^^-.b kindled at the 
filent on the progress and tnumph of '^-^''^^^^Xus,^^^^ heart to 

altar-fires of the revolution, has spread .^^^^^^^^ff ^^^ ^.^.d of patriotism, 
heart ; has united our American people ^^'^.^^f^^^^^^^^^ of ar^ 

and has secured the tnumph--not "^me-not ^"y^^^^^ ,^^'j^ ^^^^, hearts the 
or eloquence, of parties or pohticians-bu of a free P ople, m w ^^^^ 

American spirit, too long smothered ]^;^^<'' '^^f/' This affords iust grounds 
burst forth, and asserted its own pur,ty and P^^^^ ., J^^^^^J''^',^ be proud to 

for an exultation, in which ^^^y^^^^^'^^^^f . f^^.^Sf to no txue American 
share, for in it no old party has been exalted ; ^^ t)nngs ^^^^'' ^^^^ ^f 

citizen occasion for regret or mortification, ^« ^^^^^^^^ .^^^ § American lib- 

that render the voice of native masses, when ^P^f^^^^^^^^ every real 

voice of eternal right-it must be recognized a a tuumph m wtiica y 

American has an equal interest, and an equal claim ^^^^^ 

When, under the influence of a ''f'^'l'l'f'^^^^^^^^^ trust that it 

zSetiiSJd t2z:^^:^£ St. '^^ ^^ 

-[it^dTlShfanTel^pr^^^^^^^^^^^ 

i-h^:^^ a^'^=^ - SHBetht-^:^- 

Continental Kepublic, hardly discovers our ^^^^^ J^^^^'^- ^'J ^.^otion, and 
but he who studies the history of ^\»^^^7 ^^^f ' fvm '!^^^^^^ 
American statesmanship, sees her pictured ^ .g^^^^^^^^^^J^^^^ wt^^^ saw the dec- 
won the laurels of our liberty m our ^•^;*;^'"^ °'^ f^^'^^Lfng Island to Camden 
laration carried by her vote and ^now no held f om ^^^g ^ , tbe 

and Eutaw where Delaware did not leave her maityrs, ^ncl alway 
foe-no crisis in her councils where ^^^laware did not n.a n^ ^b^^^ 

^^::^^^^ ^ Z= t^^^^^aiist .reigi do.. 



248 



Sister corumonwealths 1 ave followed "n^, wHI flf^^ '" f'" ^^'^'^ '^ ^'^ ^-"^-^• 
after tin.es, when the children 1^1: tl!s/f''T ^i'^^^ ^"«^J« «''^«>-' ^"d, '" 
umphs of her patriotism irwil InnM f ' 'H^'^ '^""^ «^^''' ^^^ ™^"y tri- 

dence, Delaware, as a Statri.^ th/f nT^^^^^ "^ un.haekled fndepea- 

aware won the first vict^rj ^^ ''"^'^^ '^'""^^^ ^^^ ^^'^ blow-Del- 

ha'n: =Ji:rco^l^:^rour;!:^ ^Jl^^-^ f-^^^-P- our people, 
niestic contests which have reco "mV^d ^ controversies-the mere do- 

opinion among those who 4Tfn,litefd 17-' "/' ^"'^""^^ difference of 
present is a resistance to invaders who nnf'' ''• T ""''^' ^""'^- ^^^« 
giance to a foreign prince and VJnf IF . T'? '"^V"'^' ''"^ ^'^''' ^^^ «1I^- 
parties have dictated tldr ow^ erm f d " f ^"t^' ^^''^•^^" '^' ^'"^^-i^^^Q 
der these influences the billyh ' v ''"'^'''^ *''""' "^^ superiority. Un- 

jected to their violence ; Amen'^n Sit c'^ I 'T^^^' '-^ their fraudsf or sub- 
to the American character and . / ""^^ been stained with vices forei-m 
have revolted in SusT Cm th T ^""'T '^ -T "^'^•^^ virtuous citizens 
graded; and the hig e fp la e^ oTtllrrtv^ T^f'^'' '' ^^^^•^^' ^"^ so de- 
ers or their fiattercl some of whon ' ^^ V^'"' ^°'" abandoned to foreign- 
er a foreign pontiff to C 1:^^':^;^^^::^^' ')^ '''^'''' P'-^^^'S-Tve 
ernment of their country In on, f, . • '7 ajleg.ance to the gov- 
American statesmanship .f;e well ni.h ]?t%^t.'^''f ')' '-''^'^ P^'^^'P'^^ of 
lected to represent the countrv at t I °t "^ ' ^^'•^'.'-'"•^rs have been se- 
gratilication of feelings unsharJd L ourCn'r^r'"'!' '^ Europe; and in the 
"ame a reproach throughout 1 .rin ? ? !', ^^'^ i""' "^^^^ the American 
principles 'and policyX^l^ and%fZ\ ^'^' 7'^'''^ ''''^^- ^^^'^^^^ 
opposites,andin the'pre fnd on h nh f "".^'■'' "^^'"-^^ in their alien 
ewajed the control and direct d the nf ^ f ''"' -^"'"S" ''^Auences have over- 
elates. The result of ircoo ph^^' ^ I ' T''' ^"V*^^ ''^''''''^ of candi- 
iibertj has been to establ X in hi/;^ ." '^' °''S'"^' ^"^ native American 
tially,%hough not non^n 1 r dev d o" /''' ' ^''""-^'^•P^^"^^^^' P--^'3^' ^^bstan- 
^ons of foreign birth If ks ' rn / ^'^^ '"^^erests, and preferring per- 
claim allegiance to a fbrefnlnTclSv ';'"''" ^ -^ "^ ''' ^^"^^ ^o ?,-o- 
efforts to overthrow the Amer can system <ff Tv "' '°-"^°'^' '^^ '^^ States, 
exclude the Bible fro- thTm^ , ,P^^^" ''^^truction; have sought to 
most cherished pri ef,;! s of rreHc'^n' r '•' ' 'rf ^^^ve freely denounced the 
be remembered, has sprun ' frtrti^^o To ^^"1'"^ ^'u'?' '^"^ '^^' ^'^'^' ^^ ^'^ould 
and that is dea^ to u w^l fr elv of , ^^T ," " ^^"' ""'" ^'''^''' ''^^e won, 
authors and acts-all hi^tJ,n^ offered ; all th,s was foreign in its origin 
-endured till foref^n d mlo "uernl '', "^^"''"' ^''^ and p'^ttiently endured 

our right and our s°.fetX'ruatet' with" f M "l7 " \'"^ ^""''^"^ ^^^^ 
foreign politics. ■ counters witn which they played the game of 

de^: ':rt Z:tz ':^^:r::: rr .!'' ^'^^^^^ ^^ - -^^^^^ ovi. 

self government. No son of the 010^,^^^ fur the most trying exigencies of 
telligence, patriotism and virtue lu\ ? nf"^ 'h ""^ '^' P'^oof of American in- 
aid, it knei no leader! J^uX no ^V^'^I'^ exultation. It borrowed no 

from the oveK.har.ed c oud oT A ". ''"'''• ^^'^ 'movement burst, like a bolt, 
versal; it knew no parent but^^b^^^^^^^^^^ ^/ongs-sudden, spontaneous and uni! 
and it needed, no organ, no orator no or °f '"''/'"T ^™^'-''^"" ^'■'''- ^' ^^^^ 
people, North and t^"o^tb East and wT'«' 5' ''?''"' '^^ "'*^- ^^^ American 
and usurpation overrunning auietv J ' f/'"p J'^« ^»P °f foreign arrogance 
and reeorlled the decr"ee""ft in" Llrt.'^^l'lj^^-^-^^ '''V'''' '^^^^^ 
Hereafter . will be pointed to as the noMe:::;^dLe^f^:^tSlS^:S; 



249 



patriotism ,na la.,or.,acncc , ,nd ^^2^^:^ ^:^Zif ^t^ 
forgotten as the foremost to impress upon the gau.e 

inonwc;ilth's sanction. x-,,^! wHl inmose many and mnjestic 

That triumph, should it prove to be "f^I'/j!^;;^^; whiJh no pollution 
duties. The tirst will be to surround, as ^; \;f^^i^ succeeding will 

can invade, that Holy of Ilohes-the ^''^ll^^^^^f ^^^^^^^ ,/„ues which have 
rise the duty of -S^^f ^ --S^^-^;^^-;^ ZSv^ ', of actuating the 

r:=r;ii^ V wbi^h'f; ponces ^^.i^ - — :^r["s^;;rt 

nadons which their overcloyed <^---'^y^l'Ztl^l'^^X^^ the ruftiau 

their paupers, and to expose the V^^V^^ll^f^^^' °! ^^^ IJ^^^ , peril the 

tion will be those which w>ll «^tab Ush, as the se led p^ cy i . ^^^ 

of the nation, the saving P^-'P ^^.f^^ re^os sSd and inesJi^uablo, of 
only to the right of/^f'^'g^'.^^^^'^ ^t po 'cv by ;hich our country has been 
our honest hardhanded home labor J^^J^^ ''/ .^j^, a^n-icultural, mechanical, 
in its trade, its currency, Us 7'^'^'^, l^'^'^f ''3m^^^^^^^ ^^j luxury, thrust into 
and otherwise, and in its social habits ^f^XTlmeAcan honor and American 

and madea part of Europe, - VXhe pS -^^^^^^^^^^ l^^^^^^^ ''' ^"" 
interests. It is a repudiation of all the peculiar aa « ,^^^^ ^^_ 

idence, in requital of tlie -^-^/^^J^f ^^ sTemeTof'poliricians, and to 
burthcned country. We have, to g^^^"7 . , , ^ upon our country a 

glut the greediness of money ^^^f '' ,J,^f/Xcb attend, as their par.site 
common and almost an equal shaie ot tlie eva. w ' ^ ^ ;„,ie. 

and clinging curses, the wa.sting --^^.^f^ J^ Ve re 3 only by fostering 
pendenoe, real h^PF^ess and secure policy re to be re^^^ ^J Jntn^\ self- 

Lr own American homes-the.rindusTmu^^^ ,_^^^^j ^^^, 

reliance. In regard to every political '^^^;^';^ fjPj^^ ,^^, earibquake shakes 
fidence a.ssociated with that An^encan ib ty wbich J ^ l-^^,^, ,,,1 

— ^d ^;^^r ^^^^^^ 1^: 

their luxuries, their vices ; and added to the ^ 3^;;"' ! American a debt 
of a monstrous and perpctua debt-a ^^^^^ J. ' [^'^^^'j^.y^^f throu^iout every 
which drains our country of its specif, and which ^"^ ^ /^^^^^^.^j,^, ,, that 

^;:r:-lin:^^:rsh^^^^ -^ -- 

which all power has its source—her industry , ^^ ^jll she 

Then, and only then, will she cease to be a Europe nc^olo«y, 
be the America of our fatbers-truly i"^.<^Pf ^j^^^'^'^^ Vom ^ crimes and 

-secure in her own strength, and happy ^^-^^^^^^^^^^^^/^^Z/rd torture their own 
oppressions, the wrongs and wars of Europe "^^yj^;"^^ ;^^^.^^ l^iU that con- 
w^odd; but not a ripple of the storm w.bre^kup^n^^^^^^^^ _^^^^ ^^^ 

summation shall have been ^ff'^^^^^^'^^^^^.f'!,,!^ of our AiBcrican patriarchs 
triumph-however glorious-incomplete ; ^he ac es ot our . ^ 

and prophets will remain empty, and the real mission, holy, caim 
of our American destiny unachieved. 



250 

In the federal Union, the general and 9f.f 
appropriate orbs, neither unite^r 1 if . • governments, revolving in their 
- -terest,aad the indiviraK tlTcj "Vr"'"^' ^'^^'^^"^^ '"^-- -n- 
lustrousas her councils determi' of JleV^^^ 

^are, in her relations with the^elal'll ! ,"'''• , ^^' ^'"''^'y «f ^^ela- 

and conspicuous; and in evorytf'is t^ha. T' .' ^^'"^^/^^^^'^ been interesting 
iriost Illustrious republics of The nasJ If n- ^'^ ^'''^"°« *« prove-as the 

ritorj have also shown-thaireal ^L^^^^^^ '"''"•"« ^'^^^^^^^ ^» ^^^ent of ter- 
and ^^Pirit, and not in vastisfo/pr^^^^^^^^^^ " ''^ ^^^^'^*^°" °^ -^^- 

g neral government, there ^i-s' more f7hope-th.t . ^T-T T^''' '^ ""^ 
with a confidence in the peonle— fh«n f ''^P^ ^^at hope which always abides 
l^ome, the government ha'Xn s adm nisr^l"' felicitation. Abroad ^nTa 
pie scope for the exercise,^throuS tCir ren ' "\ '' ^'''' '' '^' P^^P'e am- 
love of country. In the'trials wh eh th !?!.?'"'''''/' ^^' '^'''' ^^^^-^ and 
adniinistration have imposed upon the count t 7^1 """^ ^'"'^^ "^ ^^^ ""happy 
confidently trust, be found as in^^ the past ?/ I ^ ^^"■' ^^'^ ^S^'"' ^« ™^J 
Ob igations of the constitution. But it Ztt ^r''^' to the exalted 

he extraordinary power and success of nnr ''T'^'^^ «^ ^^ illustration of 
lance due to American prudence Ind If r'^''"°.' "^"^ ^^ ^^e entire re- 
ti7 been so secure as JenhT.CLKTT~'^''' ""'''' has our coun- 
were imagined in regard to the uS 'Zt\^''"''''- ^"^^''^ P^^'^'^ ^^ich 
It was immovable as "he hills- everv ^3,^^^ T"''''"^'*^ n)anifestly that 
government has given to the ZL7^ indication of weakness or folly in the 
tbe all sufficiency of the^i; w^C^l^J Sr'^' ''''' ^^^-^^^' ^ ^^^ 

The iVe.. ro,7. //e;.aW was regarded in IS^". .. .) 
ous, and influential Organ of the kI at .' ' """'' powerful, danger. 

We therefore publish an'edito ial from It """ ''''' ^" ^^^' ^^^^^ «^'^^-- 
existed between the Know Nothin^.n ] a k'T- ^"^ ''^'''''"^ '^' ''^"■^"^« ^^^^^^I^ 
now JNothing and Abolition parties in the free States. 

The Know Nothings of the Nortr Mn. 

Know' .Cullt'trn^r^:rMT4chusettr^"n ^ ™"?^^ ^^ ^^^^- Gardner, the 
"pon the Nebraska question he betravs t . T/?^"'^ ^'" ^^'"<^^ber 'that 
declares himself in flvor of the res tori ion nf IT \'f- " ^''''^^^^^, and boldly 
pve to-day an extract on the SWv n r . ^"''"" Compromise. Wc 
ock, the Know Nothing Governor of Penn^"'!' ^™'" *^' ^"^^"«"^^' «f Mr. Pol! 
that Pennsylvania in her lIlT r ^^""^.y^^ania, in which we are informed 

affirmed the^Misso^Hnte -d J at, a'"' f ''^"'"''^ '^' Nebra ka W Te^ 
t-'e Slave law, notwithsLnd^^;terthfr^^ '' '^^ * '4 - 

niakc upon the subject. ^ ^'^ '^' Governor has no recommendation to 

the f^^t^irS;;^^Cf ^i?;:,f r ^t «^- of the Know Nothings of 
rassed, to a considerable extent, wh tie w' del "rff"". ^'"'^ ''' ^^^" ^-^ar- 
of the Northern States, and especiallv wi7h f,^ "''^ anti-slavery sentiment 
.epidemic, which entered so larSlv f, .^ 7u^\ be remains of the anti-Nebraska 
Kansas. The same Freesoi cl is^ns hV;e V ^^*"°,%^^°- Massachusetts to 
nation, by a caucus of the Massachusetts Knn ^'^^^ f^hib.ted in the late nomi- 
th ?.^°^^, Y'^^°°' heretofore a lead'n ' In IslTv '^^"^ ^legislature, of Gene- 
the United States Senate. There ha s° hp^t /,.""' ""' their candidate for 



251 

the Know Nothings of Massachusetts arc aware of the importaneo of maintain- 
ing, as far as possible, in this Senatorial election, the attitude of non-interven- 
tion upon tlic slavery question. 

In these Know Nothing messages of Messrs. Gardner and Pollock, and in 
this nomination of Wilson, there is a manifest disposition to conciliate the free- 
soil and anti-slavery sentiment of the North. Nor is it surprising that this 
should be the case, considering the fact that the Know Nothings entered into 
the late elections side by side with the anti-slavery forces rallied throughout the 
North upon the anti-Nebraska furor. In the outset, all great revolutions are 
orude and encumbered, more or less, with incongruities and inconsistencies. So 
this new party, from the throes of parturition^ comes into the world somewhat 
lacking the elements of perfect symmetry and harmony, although the bantling 
possesses a vigorous vital system, and all the requisites of superior manly 
strength. Now, the anti-Nebraska agitation is dying out — the popular mind 
soon wearies of impracticable abstractions. Public opinion in these United 
States is eminently practical and utilitarian, national, patriotic and conserva- 
tive. A little resolution and unity of action on the part of the Northern Know 
Nothings are all that is now wanted to ch^inse their skirts of the last remaining 
vestiges of anti-slavery doctrines and affiliations. 

Since our November election there has been some trouble among the Know 
Nothings of this State, traceable to the slavery controversy. Hence those out- 
side Know Nothing Lodges, the object of wliich is a diversion from this new 
party in favor of the re-election of Wm. H. Seward. And so, in Iowa, an anti- 
slavery Whig has been elected to the United States Senate, from the support of 
the Know Nothings, in the place of Dodge, Nebraska aJministration Democrat, 
Such combinations of anti-slavery men and Know Nothings have had in view 
the great object of " crushing out" the greatest imbecile spoils coalition at 
Washington, and in this light they may be considered as the necessary prelimi- 
nary steps in clearing the track for the projected national revolution of 1856. 

The Examiner summed up the acts of the Know Nothings of the free States 
during the years 1854 and 1855 in the following admirable manner. 

V.IIAT HAVE THEY DONE? 

The Know Nothings have within the last twelve months made sufficient pro- 
gress, in many of the State and city elections, to develope their plans and inau- 
gurate their men ; and from Maine to California we challenge the friends of the 
Order to point to a single instance of their having performed the first creditable 
act of reform. In Massachusetts their triumph was complete, and, with a half 
dozen exceptions, the Legislature is there composed of members of the new 
Order. In that State they have removed Judge Loring for enforcing the Fugi- 
tive Slave law — they have taken the first step toward practical amalgamation by 
placing negro and white children in their common schools upon terms of equal- 
ity — they have elected to the Senate a man who endorses the horrid blasphemy 
of a wretch who wants an anti-slavery God, and an anti-slavery Bible — they 
have violated the sanctity of the dwelling of a few unprotected females and 
offered rudeness«to the persons of sick children and helpless women — they have 
legislated with closed doors, disbanded the Irish companies who protected the 
person of Col. Suttle, and placed his fugitive slave, Anthony Burns, safely on 
board a vessel bound for Alexandria — and elected to the Legislature sixty or 
seventy of the Clergymen who signed the famous anti-Nebraska protest. 

In New Hampshire, led on by a fugitive slave and the notorious John P. 
Hale, they have crushed the National Democratic party, and the re-election of 
Hale to the U. S. Senate, is regarded as a fixed fact. 



252 

In New York they have elected William H. Scwartl, and, by uniting with 
the fanatical Maine Liquor Law men, destroyed a legitimate branch of business 
employing 40,0U0,000 of dollars per annum^ and thrown out of employment 
150,000 laborers/ 

In Maine they have passed the following resolutions, breathing the fiercest 
spirit of hostility to the South : 

Kesolved, 

" 1. That slavery Jias no legal tenure either under State or Federal jurisdiction, 
and therefore exists only by sufferance. 

'' 2. That our Senators in Congress be instructed and our Rejn-esentatives re- 
quested to use all practicable means to secure the passage of the following en- 
actments : 

'' First. An act repealing all laws of the United States authorizing slavery 
in the District of Columbia. 

'^Second. An act repealing the act of 1850 known as the Fugitive Slave 
Law. 

" Third. An act forever prohibiting slavery or involuntary servitude, except 
for crime, within the territories of the'United States." 

In Michigan they have passed resolutions precisely similar to those of Maine. 
In Illinois and Iowa they have elected to office the boldest and most odious of 
the Abolition party. They have Abolitionized Pennsylvania. In Ohio they 
mobbed that true friend of the South, the chivalrous Mitchell, and in Rhode 
Island they attempted to destroy the house of the Sisters of Charity, and were 
checked by the military companies of the city of Providence. 

They have already destroyed the peace and harmony of the American people, 
arraying neighbor against neighbor, and son against father. They have, by 
persecution and intolerance, alienated the affections of loyal and patriotic fo- 
reigners from our institutions, and declared the Constitution and the act of re- 
ligious toleration null and void. In the brief history of this new Order there 
is nothing good. Its career has been one of fimaticism and folly, its progress 
that of a deadly enemy of our institutions, over the ruins of all which we hold 
sacred in history and tradition. 



THE FOUR ISMS UNITED. 

In the free States the Democratic party in 1855 had to contend against an 
alliance of Maine-lawism, Know Nothingism, Abolitionism and the remnants of 
the old Whig party. 

The Nashua Gazette drew the following admirable picture of the allied forces 
of 1855 : 

Temperance, Knoiv-N'othingism, Niggerisvi, and Wilggery. 

In this vicinity. Temperance, Know-Nothingism, Niggerisra and Whitrgery 
are all united and acting cordially together for the overthrow of the Democracy ; 
and doubtless the same is true of oth^r sections of the State. The chief mana- 
ger of the Temperance organization, the man of all work, imported from the 
West to direct our political affairs under the pretence of promoting the temper- 
ance cause, (Rev. E. W. Jackson,) is devoting his whole time and efforts in 
perfeciing this combination to break down the Democratic party. It is stated, 
upon good authority, that he offered his services and the influence of the Tem- 
perance organization to the Whigs, some weeks ago, before they concluded to 



253 

go into the " Order." He is a Know-Nothing, and attended the late Conven- 
tion of that Ordor at Great Falls; a "leaky" Temperance Know-Nothing says 
he was a delegate to the Know-Nothing State Convention, wliich met on Tues- 
day last at Manchester, for the nomination of candidates for State officers, mem- 
bers of Congress, cfcc. lie is a professed Abolitionist, and a political priest and 
Pharisee of the most Jesuitical type. He declares in the Temperance organ 
that he and his friends will support no candidate who is not an open and relia- 
ble friend of a stringent prohibitory liquor law. Yel when he became a mem- 
ber of the Know-Nothing organization he took the following oath : 

" Ohh'ijatlon. — You, and each of you, of your own free will and accord, in 
the presence of Almighty God and these witnesses, your right hand resting on 
this Holy Bible and Cross, and your left hand raised towards Heaven, or //' it 
le preferred, your left hand resting on your breast, and your right hand raised 
toward Heaven, in token of your sincerity, do solemnly promise and swear, that 
you will not make known to any person or persons any of the sif/us, secrets, mys- 
teries, or objects of this organization, unless it be to those whom, after due exa- 
mination, or lawful information,;.you shall find to be members of this organiza- 
tion in good standing; that you will not cut, carve, print, paint, stamp, stain, 
or in any way, directly or indirectly, expose any of the secrets or objects of this 
Order, nor suffer it to be done by others if in your power to prevent it, unless 
it be for official instruction ; that so long as you are connected with this organi- 
zation, if not regularly dismissed from it, you will, in all things, POLITICAL 
or SOCIAL, so far as this Order is concerned, comply iciih the u:iU of the ma- 
jority, when expressed in lawful manner, thoiu/h it may conflict vrith your per- 
sonal preference, so long as it does not conflict with the Grand State or Subor- 
dinate Constitutions, the Constitution of the United States of America, or that 
of the State in which you reside ; that you will not, under any circumstances 
•whatever, knowingly recommend an unworthy person for initiation, nor suffer it 
to be done if in your power to prevent it. You furthermore promise and de- 
clare that you will not vote nor give your influence for any man for any office 
in the gift of the people, unless he be an American-born citizen, in favor of 
American-born ruling America; nor if he be a Iloman Catholic; and that you 
will not, iinder any circumstances, exjjose the name of any member of this Or- 
der, nor reveal the existence of such an or(/ani~ation. To all the foregoing you 
bind yourselves, under the no less penalty than that of being expelled from 
this Order, and of having your name posted and circulated throughout the dif- 
ferent Councils of the United States as a perjurer, and as a traitor to God and 
your country ; as being unfit to be employed and trusted, countenanced or svp- 
ported, in any business transaction ; as a person totally unworthy the covjidence 
of all (jood men, and as one at ivhom the finger of scorn should ever he pointed. 
So help me God." 

By this oath this reverend politician and all other members of the Order have 
sworn, "in the presence of Almighty God," to vote for such candidates as may 
be selected by the Know-Nothing Convention. If they nominate the greatest 
rumsellers ever defended by Jack Hale, this leader of the Temperance cause 
has sioorn to support them ! If they select open and notorious rum-drinkers 
and opponents of a prohibitory law, he is bound by a most solemn oath to sup- 
port them ! He is a ranting Abolitionist Aid anti-Nebraska man ; yet if they 
nominate avowed Nebraska men, he has sworn before Cod to give them his cor- 
dial support 1 And such is the position of every other Temperance man and 
Abolitionist who belongs to this Order — a position which this reverend gentle- 
man has knowingly induced very many of them to place themselves in. 

Now, who can doubt, when an intelligent man pursues such a course, that he 
desiyns just what must inevitably follow ? Rev. Mr. Jackson has not been the 



254 

dupe of others in this matter, but, on the contrary, has designedly used the in- 
fluence of his position to thus virtually force Temperance men into the support 
of the factions now banded against the Democratic party. 

But has he used nothing hut his influence? It is known that eff"orts have 
been made to raise "a million fund," upon which a certain per cent, may be 
assessed to be expended in promoting the success of the Temperance party. 
Quite a large sum has been subscribed towards that fund, and Rev. Mr. Jack- 
son is said to be the sole manager, depositary, and disbursing agent of the mo- 
ney paid in. And for what purpose, and in what manner, is that money now 
being used? Is it true that it is being expended for political purposes — to pay 
his salary and expenses and '■'■ incidentals," while engaged mainly in promoting 
the schemes of the political organizations opposed to the Democracy ? This is 
openly stated to be the fact; and the course of Mr. Jackson but tends to corro- 
borate the statement. Let true, honest, and single-minded Temperance men 
enquire into these matters before they lend themselves further to the promotion 
of the political and mercenary schemes of the demagogues for whose use the 
Temperance organization is now being perverted. 

We learn that among the delegates from Concord to the Know-Nothing Con- 
vention at Manchester, besides Rev. Mr. Jackson, was Ephraira liutchius, late 
Whig postmaster there, a leading member of the Whig State committee, and 
an active member of the Convention which nominated James Dell for Governor ! 
Among them were, also, some of the leading Freesoilers. Thus the heads, " the 
central cliques," of Whiggery, Niggerism, and Temperance are united and ac- 
tive in this dark conspiracy against the rights of the people and the Republican 
institutions of the country. Let honest men of all parties, and especially De- 
mocrats, look and reflect upon this fact, and let it nerve their arms and confirm 
their resolution to fight manfully against this corrupt and wicked combination of 
unprincipled men for the promotion of mercenary objects. 



THEIR PLATFORM IN VIRGINIA. 

Having now shown the attitude of the Know Nothing Party in the Northern 
States, we close this review by publishing their ofiicially promulgated Basis of 
Principles in Virginia. It was an emanation from the Winchester Convention. 

The Convention of the American Party of Virginia, 

Which met at Winchester, on Tuesday, the 13th of March, appointed the 
undersigned a committee, to make publication, over their names, of the follow- 
ing : 

Bads Principles of the American Party of Virginia. 

Determined to preserve our political institutions in their original purity and 
vigor, and to keep them unadulterated and unimpaired by foreign influence, 
either civil or religious, as well as by home faction and home demagogueism ; 
and believing that an American policy, religious, political and commercial, ne- 
cessary for the attainment of these ends, we shall observe and carry out in 
practice, the following principles : — * 

1. That the suffrages of the American people for political ofiices, should 
not be given to any others than those born on our soil, and reared and matured 
under the influence of our institutions. 

2. That no foreigner ought to be allowed to exercise the elective franchise, 
till he shall have resided within the United States a sufficient length of time to 
have become acquainted with the principles and imbued with the spirit of our 



255 

institutions, and until be sliall have become tborougblj identified with the great 
interests of our country. 

3. That whilst no obstacle should be interposed to the immigration of all fo- 
reigners of honest and industrious habits, and all privileges and immunities 
enjoyed by any native born citizen of our country should be extended to all such 
immigrants, except that of participating in any of our political administrations; 
3'et all legal means shouhl be adopted to obstruct and prevent the immigration 
of the vicious and worthless, the criminal and pauper. 

4. That the American doctrine of religious toleration, and entire absence of 
all proscriptions for opinion's sake, should be cherished as one of the very fun- 
damental principles of our civil freedom, and that any sect or party which be- 
lieves and maintains that any foreign power, religious or political, has the right 
to control the conscience or direct the conduct of a freeman, occupies a position 
which is totally at war with the principle of freedom of opinion, and which is 
mischievous in its tendency, and which principle if carried into practice would 
prove wholly destructive of our religious and civil liberty. 

5. That the Bible in the hands of every free citizen, is the only permanent 
basis of all true liberty and genuine equality. 

6. That the intelligence of the people is necessary to the right use and the 
continuance of our liberties, civil and religious, hence the propriety and impor- 
tance of the promotion and fostering of all means of moral culture, by some 
adequate and permanent provision for general education. 

7. That the doctrine of availability now so prevalent and controlling, in the 
nomination of candidates for office, in total disregard of all principles of rio'ht 
of truth, and of justice, is essentially wrong, and should be by all good men 
condemned. 

8. That as a general rule, the same restrictions should be proscribed to the 
exercise of the power of removal from office, as are made necessary to be ob- 
served in the power of appointment thereto ; and that executive influence and 
patronage, should be scrupulously conferred and jealously guarded. 

9. That the sovereignty of the States should be supreme in the exercise of 
all powers not expressly delegated to the Federal Government, and which may 
not be necessary and proper to carry out the powers so delegated, and that thi's 
principle should be observed and held sacred in all organizations of the xVmeri- 
can party. 

10. That all sectarian intermeddling with politics and political institutions, 
coming from whatever source it may, should be promptly resisted by all such 
means as seem to be necessary and proper for this end. 

11. That whilst the perpetuity of the present form of the Federal Govern- 
ment of the United States, is actually necessary for the proper development of 
all the resources of this country, yet the principle of non-intervention, both on 
the part of the Federal Government and of the several States of the Union in 
the municipal affairs of each other, is essential to the peace and prosperity of 
our country, and to the well being and permanence of our institutions, and at 
the same time the only reliable bond of brotherhood and union. 

12. That Red Republicanism and licentious indulgence in the enjoyment of 
civil privileges, are as much to be feared and deprecated, by all friends to well 
regulated government and true liberty as any of the forms of monarchy and 
despotism. 

13. That the true interest and welfare of this country, the honor of this na- 
tion, the individual and private rights of its citizens, conspire to demand that 
all other questions arising from party organizations, or from any other source 
should be held subordinate to and in practice made to yield to the great princi- 
ples herein promulgated. 

ANDREW E. KENNEDY, of Jefferson, 
GEORGE D. GRAY, of Culpeper, 
JOSIAH DABBS, of Halifax. 



256 



THE METROPOLITAN DISTRICT. 

Various circumstances combined to render the canvass in the Richmond or 
Metropoliran Congressional District, one of profound interest to the whole State. 
The great circulation of the Democratic press published in Richmond, and the 
fact that the Know Nothing party boasted of its perfect invincibility in that 
district, attracted all eyes to its candidates and aspirants for Congress. 

As an entertaining and amusing chapter, illustrative of the party feeling in 
the district, we give two of the Examiners articles upon the factions and rival- 
ries which disturbed the tranquility of the Know Nothing councils of Rich- 
mond : 

The Know Nothings, we have every reason to believe, have to brave a sea of 
trouble. Rampant and perfectly ungovernable aspirants for the nomination for 
Congress, render the councils as tempestuous as the cave of ^Eolus. If what; 
we hear is true, the friends of Messrs. Botts, Crane and Scott, are in a precious 
stew. Messrs. Crane and Scott have not left their destinies to bo controlled by 
the stars and their friends. Both have sought, by deeds of mighty valor, to 
build up reputations in the provinces. They have held forth long and frequently 
to admiring audiences, and the people have been left in great uncertainty a.s to 
their respective merits. Scott makes, we learn, usually a speech of one hour 
and a quarter, well digested, full of facts and scraps from newspapers and alma- 
nacs. All of this materiel, he has carefully and systematically arranged, and 
he runs out with the regularity of an hour glass. When the exigencies of the 
debate require a reply, he reverses his hour glass and the sands of his discourse 
pour back agaiil. He is courteous and gentlemanly, but deficient in vivacity 
and fluency. Mr. Adoniram J. Crane, on the contrary, is affluent of words, 
and really has gotten together a large collection of clap trap, broken beads, bits 
of tinsel, fragments of red wax, pieces of differently colored glass, and other 
odds and ends, which, when he pours them forth, do look very pretty and daz- 
zling to the eye of the i.nthinkiug. There is neither logic nor connection in 
his ideas, but he has a great deal more declamation than Scott, and possesses a 
creditable share of intellectual cultivation. He does not measure his discourses 
by the hour, but runs like an endless chain pump — the same bucket.s and the 
same links coming up every few minutes. Hence, when we attend public 
meetings in Richmond, and the disciples of Sam want a regular blow out, we 
hear the name of " Crane !" " Crane !" " Crane !" frequently repeated — but 
we never hear the first feeble cry for Scott. Scott is strong in the provinces 
where the people like the strong pork and beans of "facts and arguments;" 
but Crane's fancy touches tickle the descendants of Botts' old guard. They 
shout for Judson Crane, just as their fathers used to scream for Botts — when 
his envious lieutenants used to sit neglected on the back benches, without a call. 
Besides, Scott is regarded as a sort of interloper, having recently made a de- 
scent upon Richmond from the hills of Powhatan. His sign still glistens, on 
Governor street, with the fresh paint of yesterday, whilst A. Judson Crane's 
shingle looks as old and veteran as his services to Botts. Scott has not figured 
in our city courts, whereas the professional services of Crane are frequently 
called into requisition by the unwashed of the extremities of the city. Scott's 
affection for Botts is said to be of a doubtful character, whereas Crane has il- 
lustrated his devotion in a thousand ways. He has sat at the feet of Gamaliel 
long and faithfully. In times gone by, he is said to have perpetrated a biogra- 
phy of his majesty, and being a man of classical education, which Botts is not, 
he is supposed to have often taken the Immortars thunderbolts in a rough 



257 

state*, and polished thciu for general circulation. We have long thought that 
Botts' ragged mantle would sit becomingly on Crane. Scott's services to the 
party are acknowledged in the counties, but the sages who deliberate at the Af- 
rican church know him not. lie has again and again ravaged the counties of 
the district, devouring Democratic electors and candidates for Congress, like a 
new Dragon of Wantly — but the people of llichmond have never seen him 
do it. 

He was reported, during the Congress of 1852, to have swallowed our Con- 
gressional elector, Mr. Robert Gr. Seott, eleven times, and to have skinned him 
alive eight times — albeit a mild tempered man. During the present canvass he 
has devoured Judge Caskie in a great many instances, but yet the city people 
are skeptical, and do not put much faith in the correspondents of newspapers. 
If Scott would make arrangements to swallow Judge Caskie some evening at 
the African church, it would put his stock up amazingly. Adonirara's pros- 
pects would also be improved, if he was to demolish Mr. Aylett in that sacred 
edifice. Both had better try it at an early day. We believe the victims are 
prepared to meet their fate with becoming resignation. 

But Crane has not been at all behind Scott in the Dragon of Wantly line. 
He went to Petersburg one afternoon to sup upon the remains of Senator Ma- 
son, and it was with great difficulty that he was kept from his atrocious and 
cannibal designs upon that estimable gentleman's body. The kindness of the 
Democracy of Petersburg having rescued Senator Mason, and deprived our 
friend of his anticipated supper, he hastened, hungry as a boa constrictor, to 
Caroline, and in the sight of a great crowd, crushed and skinned our Congres- 
sional elector, Mr. Aylett, and ravenously swallowed his mangled remains. 
Scarcely had we recovered from the shock of this bereavement, when we heard 
of his frightening to death two or three Democratic orators in New Kent, and 
the very next evening he was in Petersburg, unmercifully devouring Senator 
Mason's speech, and speaking so eloquently that a letter writer mentions an 
unfortunate man who, having had his jaw fractured by the accidental discharge 
of a pistol, quite forgot the pain in his ecstatic admiration of Mr. Crane's 
harangue. 

It will thus be seen, from this hasty parallel after the manner of Plutarch, 
that both Scott and Crane have great claims at this time, and that both of them 
have performed eminent services. Crane and Scott are the Achilles and Hector 
of the aspirants. There are others who are said also to hone after the fleshpots. 
in a very meek and quiet manner, but who are, we fear, mouldering in the 
shade of Scott's greatness and Crane's eloquence. An occasional groan from 
an old Botts man evinceth the wrath of a few of the faithful at Crane's havin"',, 
tired of long waiting, now set up shop for himself with a fair prospect of sup- 
planting his old patron in business. 

Mr. Harmer Gilmer having won many laurels by his manly and patriotic 
correspondence with " A Southern Mairon," and achieved all that a diploma- 
tist could, in his famous negotiations for Mt. Vernon, would not, it is supposed,, 
indignantly reject a nomination for Congress, provided that accomplished un- 
known, " The Southern Matron," does not desire it. But Mr. Gilmer has only, 
made one speech of half an hour's length, whereas Messrs. Crane and Scott 
have expended many thousand cubic feet of gas for their country. There is a. 
fitness of things in Crane's succeeding to the fading glories of Botts, which the' 
Know Nothings will certainly recognize. Mark the prediction. We stand 
ready to welcome the young phoenix when he springs from the ashes of the 
old. 

17 



258 



^' HURRAH FOR BOTTS !"* 

Gordon Cumniings, the celebrated lion killer, who spent seven years iu Africa 
f^laying all sorts of wild animals, sonjewbere describes the consteruation produced 
ttmoQg all inferior wild beasts by the appearance and roar of a full grown, 
tawny lion. One evening when he was anxiously awaiting near a pool of water 
for his game, he was amused by the performances of sundry jackalls, wolves, 
hyenas, and other subordinate beasts of prey. The jackalls lorded it iu quite a 
luagniticient manner over a pack of timid wild dogs; the hyenas treated the 
rascally looking w^olves with aristocratic contempt, and the wolves revenged 
themselves by their contemptuous treatment of a few stray foxes. Suddenly, 
in the midst of this entertaining comedy, a terrific roar is heard; and a huge 
lion bounds into the throng, with flaming eyes, and erect, vibrating tail. In a 
moment the whole scene changes — the hyenas skulk off, the jackalls take to their 
heels, the wolves disappear, and the wild dogs, protected by their insignificance, 
retire to a neighboring hill and bay alternately at the rising moon and the hun- 
gry lion. 

Since our last issue a somewhat similar scene has been enacted in this 
Congressional district. Presuming that the immortal Botts was looking so in- 
tently upon the glittering fringe of a prospective nomination for the Presidency, 
that he had forgotten this Congressional district, a choice assortment of subor- 
dinate aspirants had appeared upon the stage, and were furnishing a capital gra- 
tuitous entertainment for the people of the surrounding counties. In the ab- 
sence of razor strap orators, and greased rope itinerants, these gentlemen aiforded 
huge amusement to our unsophisticated country friends. And the rivalry of 
these gentlemen was so transparent that it was seriously apprehended that after 
they had devoured all of the Democratic electors and candidates, they would 
swallow each other and produce "an aching void," such as that which the Kil- 
kenny feline combatants are said to have created at the termination of their little 
controversy. Botts out of the way, this Congressional district seemed a " pent 
up Uiica," too small to contain two such Ciesars as A. Judson Crane and Wra. 
C. Scott. Two suns or two moons, would not have surprised people more than 
the appearance of two men of such transcendant ability at the same time. 
Their reputation was the growth of a day. It took their most intimate friends 
by surprise. The moment the rumor spread that Botts was out of the way, 
these gentlemen outgrew their small clothes, and their greatness spread over the 
land with marvellous rapidity. Their inflation was as rapid as that of a balloon, 
and Jack's wonderful bean stalk was rather a slow affair when compared with 
the rise of these gentlemen. Until yesterday, never were the chances of suc- 
cess more nicely balanced, than between Crane and Scott. One reigned supreme 
in the city, whilst the other lauded it in the provinces. One wore the scalp of 
a United States Senator, of a candidate for the mayoralty, and of a Congres- 
sional elector at his girdle; the other scoured the counties with the skin of ano- 
ther Congressional elector, for a waistcoat, and the legs of a distinguished can- 
didate for Congress dangling out of his mouth. Both were working with an 
energy that prompted success^ but we fear that both have been suddenly cut 
down in the flower of their youth. On Tuesday morning, Botts gave one of his 
old fashioned roars, and, by nine o'clock the same day. Crane and Scott needed 
the services of Coroner Wicker, Thus we have seen, on a bright spring morning, 
two belligerent turkey cocks writhing and twisting each other's necks in deadly 
conflict, struck down by the fowling piece of a cruel sportsman. Botts again in 
the field, Crane falls prostrate before his omnipotent I am, and poor Mr. Scott 
retreats to Powhatan to digest his bloody repasts in private. Vanity of vanity, 

* Old Screamersville war cry. 



259 

all is vanity ! Who kao^eth wbat a day may bring forth ? Yesterday, Crane 
and Scott were Sam's greatest pets ; to day, and none so poor as to do them re- 
verence. Oh, cruel Botts ! oh, unhappy Crane ! oh, miserable Scott ! 

We had jiist announced the speedy appearance of the 3'oung phoenix when the 
old bird, with a few lusty blows from his still vigorous wings, extinguishes the 
funeral pile, and with slightly singed plumage, drives his dreadful beak and ter- 
rible claws plump through the tender body of the aspiring lieutenant. 

For no one can read the wrathful mani/rsto of Botts and not recognize the 
willingness of that gentlemaa to accept the nomination ; and as he stands head 
and shoulders above such men as Crane and Scott, and as there is more capacity 
in the parings of his nails than in all the rest of the Whig party together, his 
nomination may be regarded as mast probable. For, although at this time, 
when the people are given to doing funny things, and when the political caul- 
dron is boiling, we may expect strange things to happen and queer nominations 
to come to the surface, there is nevertheless a weight of Whig consistency and 
genuineness in the ring of Botts' metal that the subordinates cannot resist. 
They may scour the district, and illustrate their "gift of the gab" at ever/ 
cros,s-road, but when the old lion (dilapidated as he is) of Whiggery sends 
forth one of his terrible roars and treads the accustomed war path with as firm 
a tread as ever, in an instant Adomiram and the gentleman " late of Poivkatan" 
are forgotten, and the old guard, the veterans of Screaraersville, the heroes of ever 
f;dthful Butchertown, the patriots of Kocketts, and the partisans of the Slashes, 
instinctively send up the old shout of '■^ hun-alt, for JSoits." There is an affec- 
tion, a faithfulness about these old chaps which the juveniles who yell for Crane,* 
and the old country people to whom Scott administers almanacs and newspap<.^j' 
scraps, never dreamt of. The hearts of the old respectable, consistent Clay 
Whigs, still belong to Botts. He is the embodiment of the most respectable 
elements of Whiggery, and in this district he is still invincible, lie possesses 
stores of strength that the fire flies who have recently sought to illumine the 
dark subject of Know Nothingism never dreamt of. 

Look at the weight and respectability attached to the card in which Botts 
has just crushed out the prospects of the Cranes and Scotts of this district. 
They indicate that the nomination will be given to John Minor Botts beyond a 
((uestion of doubt. The old spirit flames out in his jyroHunciameulo. Know 
Nothingism has not purified him of a drop of his deep rooted prejudice, and 
we find the usual slap at the enemies who have always beset his patli. 

The unconquerable Whiggery of the venerable and invincible gleams forth 
in striking contrast with the cowardly silence of the Know Nothings upon 
great principles and measures. He grapples with the sub-treasury and the 
tariff in the real old fashioned way ; as Whigs were wont to do in the days of 
Clay and Webster. He pitches into Democracy boldly and courageously, and 
feeling that he is a foeman worthy of our blade, we are inclined to yell out, as 
his old guard used to do, '^Hurrah for ButAs." 

If Botts receives the nomination, as no doubt he will, we shall have to use 
longer artillery than we had designed employing in this district. Small fowl- 
ing pieces, with dimuuitive loads of ordinary powder and mustard seed shot, 
we had deemed sufficient for the game which was anticipated. But we must 
get a Minnie rifle and Dupont's best, now, for Botts is very different game 
from that which we had expected to hunt after. 

The appearance of Botts renders it necessary that we should take an affec- 
tionate farewell of those disconsolate young gentlemen, Crane and Scott, to 
whom we recommend an attentive perusal of " Love's Labor Lost." They 
will now have, we fear, nothing to remind them of their labors but indigestions 
and nightmares, those inevitable consequences of cannibal feasts and indis- 
criminate gluttony. When Scott had no one to oppose him but Crane, the of- 
fence of his squatting upon Adoniram's property was denounced as a most 



260 

grievous intrusion. Bat when tlie ferocious old guard of Botts open upon bim 
there will be no mercy shown. With brief recollections of the manner in which 
they used to crucify Botts' ambitious and refractory lieutenants, we compas- 
Bionate poor Mr. Scott — we do indeed. We almost imagine that we already 
hear the ever faithful and eloquent Perrin, the friend of Clay, and the Jidus 
Achates of Botts, in classic alternations from Latin to English, pouring his 
lard like streams of*burning invective upon Mr. Scott, for moving into the Im- 
mortal's district to get to Congress. Gods ! what a theme for the Old Guard — 
•what an oft'ence in the estimation of tlie faithful — what a scarlet crime in the 
eves of indignant Screamersville — a straiKjcr seeking to reign in the kingdom 
cf his Serene Highness, Botts I. ! 

And Adoniram, young friend by adoption, '' well beloved of Mahomet," 
Luther's ever faithful Malanothon, biographer, thunderbolt polisher to his Ma- 
jesty, will you swallow you disappointment, and, with a face expressive of cas- 
tor oil, salts and senna, love and disappointment, afiection and desperation,- 
conceal your griefs, and cry with the rest, " Hurrah for Botts !" How will 
vou bear this cruel- treatment of him to whom you have devoted so many years 
of useful friendship? 

We know that this trial of temper and test of devotion is a terrible one, but 
take the advice of a well-wisher. Stick to BoUs — never hoist the flag of rebel- 
lion — show, as you have always done, the loyalty of your frifindship-r-wait but 
a little longer, and you will bask in the sunshine of the Immortal's eternal grati- 
tude — sacrifice your very excellent prospects — go in heart and soul for Botts — 
and the Old Guard will agree with their sons, that you deserve to succeed to all 
ef Botts' popularity and honor. The present is a critical period in your fdr- 
tunes, and no man ever lost by a graceful and timely act of magnanimous self- 
sacrifice for a frieni. You could have swallowed Scott and Gilmer, but no one 
ever expected that you could resist the will of the political Gamaliel, seated at 
■whose feet you have drank in so much wisdom and statesmanship. We entreat 
you, don't be rash. 



The Political Entomology of "Our District." — We must solicit 
the indulo-ence of our readers for furnishing them in each issue of our paper 
v.'ith a fresh chapter upon the ever changing phases of the Congressional 
nomination battle of the bats and owls of this district. We must, however, 
beg them to remember that, in devoting so much time to such trivial matters, 
we humbly imitate the examples of many most illustrious authors and emi- 
nent men. Have we not the elaborate epic of the "Battle of the Frogs 
and Mice;" Gulliver's account of the wars of the Blufuscans and the Lilli- 
putians, about the best method of breaking an egg ; a classic author's his- 
tory of the feuds of the cranes and pigmies ; Dickens's sketch of the rival 
candidates for the office of Beadle; Shakspeare's "Mid-Summer's Night 
Dreams," and "Much Ado about Nothing.?" Have W'e not in every issue 
of Bell's Life in London carefully prepared reports of fights between rats 
and terriers!^ ancf are there not well authenticated accounts of men having 
lost and won thousands of pounds upon a fight between crickets, or a race 
between two maggots extracted from a rotten hazlenut.' Let these prece- 
dents be our excuse. We take the same pleasure in the political entomology 
of this district, that naturalists do in studying the habits of beetles and bed 
bugs. 

We are happy in the refreshing conviction, that the Know-Nothing coun- 
cils of this district are about as harmonious as were the famous cats of Kil- 
kenny. An army of candidates for the nomination have scattered dismay 
and discord through the ranks of the enemy. Sampson's foxes with fire 



261 

brands fastened to their tails, never produced such wide-spread alarm an J 
consternation as these vociferous candidates have done. We have already 
recorded the mighty deeds of the famous squatter from Powhatan, Scott. 
and the not le^s valorous and voracious pet of the hungry Adonirain, who 
has achieved greatness in a day. We have now to announce that Mr. Harmar 
Gilmer has recently greatly distinguished himself by his cannibal perform- 
ances on the South-Side — having somewhere near Farmville swallowed the 
Hon. Kidder Meade, one day, and lunched upon the attenuated remains of 
the Hon. Wm. 0. Goode the next; thus depriving of his legitimate food the 
facetious and jocose Tazewell, who is announced by l^ie Know-Nothing 
papers as "running with his tail curled," a compliment which he doubtless 
deserves and appreciates. 

Abandoning, for a time, the patriotic and man-milliner duties of his higii 
diplomatic connection with the treaty for the cession of Mount Vernon, he 
is said to have snapped up our unfortunate friends, Meade and Goode, like a 
hungry pike. We, therefore, hail him as an honorable member of that order 
of cannibals, of which Messrs. Scott and Crane are the founders. He has 
proved himself their equal, and we take the liberty of entering hirn for the 
nomination. It is distinctly understood that no man can become a candidate 
for the nomination unless he can furnish to the Convention satisfactory evi- 
dence of having swallowed or skinned a Democratic orator within the six 
weeks preceding the .oth of May. Have Messrs. Coleman, Perrin, Rhodes 
and Griffin, either skinned or swallowed any one yet. If they have not, the 
sooner they begin the better. 

We have been assured by a friend, that the Whig did not slay Botts oa 
last Tuesday morning, but that its rifle ball merely stunned him. It is sus- 
pected that he was restored to consciousness by the felonious attempts of 
two distinguished cannibals to skin and swallow him, whilst he lay upon the 
Potter's field where the Whig had cast his apparently lifeless remains. We 
regret to say, that Messrs. Crane and Scott are strongly suspected of this 
horrible crime. They are supposed on Tuesday morning to have been wan- 
dering about seeking for fresh victims, when at the same instant they espied 
the prostrate body of the "Immortal," and both, with a cannibal yell of 
joy, pounced upon him, Adonlram making an incision between the ears to 
skin him scientifically, whilst Mr. Scott, in his eagerness to swallow him, 
and not wishing to disturb Mr. Crane, commenced with the supposed de- 
funct's feet. These violations of his sacred person, restored the Immortal 
to consciousness. They were like the application of volatile salts to a faint- 
ing woman's nose. One blow and a kick sent the luckless swallower and 
the ungrateful skinner fifty feet in opposite directions, and the Immortal 
sprang to his feet, irritated beyond measure by the treatment which he had 
sustained. 

We, therefore, take pleasure in announcing that our illustrious friend, is 
not yet dead, and that he again treads the old war path, in a most wrathful 
and dangerous mood. These attempts to rule him off, and diabolical efFori-j 
to skin and swallow him, have merely irritated him, as gad fiies excite the 
rage of mighty bulls. We delight to believe that Botts knows his rights as 
a freeman and a Know-Nothing, and that he does not intend to be ruled off. 
The bullet of the Whig merely flattened against his intellectual skull, as do 
those of a western hunter against the frontal bones of the hardy buffalo. 
We believe that he will now wage a war of extermination "on the faction 
which has always sought (his) my destruction and overthrow," and that he 
will be backed by the very strongest and most efficient men of the order. 
He will make the district too hot for the squatter from Powhatan, and hang 
the rebellious Adoniram in chains, or quarter him, as the old king's of Eng- 



262 

land used to do their enemies. Long may Botts live, for there are man\' uses 
to which he can be turned. 

The indications of a Know-Nothing now of no ordinary magnitude, cannot 
f,'e mistaken. If Botts does not receive the much coveted nomination, he 
will leave the order so shattered and torn by dissensions, that there will 
be no chance for any one else. The members of the Old Guard whom we 
occasionally meet on the street, wear a grim, firm, defiant, air — a rule or 
r'.:in look, that leaves no question as to what they will do if the Immortal is 
f:ast overboard. We have a right, as Botts' most consistent and faithful or- 
gan, having always hailed his nominations with pleasure, and felt inexpres- 
bihly gratified when he was soundly beaten by Judge Caskie, to insist that 
I:e shall not be killed off. When the post of danger requires a man of nerve 
a.nd pluck, an interesting protege is always placed in the front rank. Upon 
si'ch occasions the Scotts stay quietly enough in Powhatan, and the Cranes 
are models of humble devotion to the Immortal. But now that there is some 
remote prospect of success, Botts is to be inhumanl}'' sacrificed, and all 
Screamersville thrown into convulsions of grief at the massacre of her noble 
son. As the only organ of the neglected Bolts, we call upon the Old Guard 
to rally, and if the rebels with Adoniram, Gilmer and Scott at their head, 
continue to resist, we command them to "head them or die." Let this lan- 
guage of your illustrious leader be inscribed upon your banners, and the 
dangers now menacing your chieftain w\\\ disappear like morning clouds. 
Let the Slashes be afoused, let Hell town wax hot, let Rocketts take the 
field, let Screamersville move forth like an army with banners, let Butcher- 
town, led on by the faithful Heckler, eiriulate Darby town in deeds of might}^ 
valor, and Botts will win the nomination, 

As it is not in mortals, however, always to command success, should the 
indignant order prove too strong for our protege, and eject him from their cul- 
vert hissing like a red hotshot from a cannon's mouth, we again affectionately 
proffer to him the sanctuary of Democracy. If the high honor of taking 
Botts, the most incorrigible of sinners, to the altar of Democracy is vouch- 
safed to us, it will constitute the proudest duty of our life. We shall lead 
forward the sobbing and penitent old gentleman, blubbering over the recol- 
lection of his unnumbered political transgressions with the delight of a pious 
parson who has at last beaten down the last barrier erected by Satan around 
the soul of a hardened reprobate. 

We now confess — what we have long concealed within our own breast — 
that the great object of our life has been the conversion of Botts. We have 
always had a mysterious presentiment that he would die a good Democrat, 
and as the carniverous Adoniram says that "the Whig party has died of 
corruption," we feel assured that if the Know-Nothings kick Botts out, he 
will petition to lay his battered head on the great bosom of Democracy. 

It is all nonsense to say that Botts is too old to turn Democrat, and that 
gentlemen at sixty are not equal to feats of ground and lofty tumbling. 
There have been instances of men commencing the study of the law at that age, 
and becoming eminent jurists. W^ould it not be a cheering spectacle to be- 
hold Botts a regular attendant at Democratic gatherings and love-feasts, 
\vorking on vigilant committees, attending nominating conventions, and ap- 
plauding the speeches of our young orators, from a modest back bench in the 
African church. Promotion, we admit, would be slow in the Immortal's 
case, but if he was to join us now, and live to the good old age of ninety, 
we would make him chairman of a ward com-mittee, or use our influence to 
have him rewarded by some post-ofRce appointment in the provinces. 

P. S. — Since writing the above we have seen the Lynchburg Virginian's 
awful account of the manner in which Adoniram, on Thursday night, in the 



263 

presence of the goodly people of Lynchburg, swallowed our friend, Mr. 
Sheltoii F. Leake. The account should have been headed " How Jonah 
swallowed the Whale ;" and be interpreted by contraries as Irish dreams 
are interpreted. The astonishing rapidity with which this modern scourge of 
Democracy thins our ranks is frightful. Boa-constrictors, after they have 
crushed and swallowed their prey, remain torpid for weeks, whilst the slow 
work of digestion is going on; but Crane snaps up the most plethoric ora- 
tor, swallows him whole, as if he were a minnow, digests him in five minutes, 
and at once proceeds to transfix the next victim, as if he had eaten nothing 
for a month. Like Tamerlane, he has reared a pyramid of scalpless skulls, 
which far surpasses in height those of even Scott or Gilmer. Look at the 
following p3'ramidical statement, and sec how Adoniram leads the column. 
To Judson's list we ought to add the prospective victims, Hunter, Judge 
Douglas, and six other U. S. Senators: 

Tamerlane Adoniram' s Scott's. Gilmer s. 

S. F. Leake. 
J. M. Mason, 
P. Henry Aylett. 

John D. Munford, 00 00 

Douglass of New Kent, 000 Goode, 

Douglassof King William, Caskie, R.K.Meade. 



The Scrub Race for the Nomination. — The scrub race for the Know- 
Nothing nomination for Congress in this district is becoming every day more 
and' more ludicrous and amusing. A new pony, or an ambitious Shetland, 
is entered almost every morning, and the excitement promises to become 
terrific before the 5th of May, when the judges propose making the 
award. There have been many entries recently from the provinces. For- 
getting that he was merely put forward to be well beaten in the last election, 
the friends of Clayton G. Coleman have entered that highly respectable but 
rather slow horse. Chesterfield, we learn, proposes to put forward Holden 
Rhodes, and we imagine that the ever faithful, eloquent and full blooded 
Whig, Samuel Perrin, of Hanover, and the not less faithful Fendal Griflin, 
will be duly put upon the turf. 

Our .last article upon this subject left the indomitable Botts with erect 
mane, vibrating tail, and unearthly roar like a lion in the path, frightening 
into the jungles such small fry as the exotic Scott and the vociferous Crane. 
But, sad to relate, whilst this dilapidated, although still formidable lion was 
frightening all the inferior rivals out of their wits, the Gordon Cummings of 
the Whig was taking a deadly and unerring aim at him, and at the report of 
that sportsman's editorial ritle, on last Tuesday morning, Botts keeled over 
dead as a mackerel, and his conquerer at once dragged his carcase to the 
nearest Potter's field, where, we fear, by this time, under the hot suns of the 
last three days, it is becoming animated with insect life. In the name of all 
that remains of Botts, in the name of the old guard, in the name of the few 
floating fragments of the old Whig party, we ask why did our friend of the 
Whig kill Botts by an editorial filled with damning hints of his want of 
availability, and suspicions of his being chest foundered and spavined. We 
fear that there is a conspirac}' in this district to deprive Botts of his rights, 
to declare him dead, to publish h'lt obituary notice as Dean Swift did that of 
Partridge, the almanac maker, whilst the man was alive and hearty. We 
begin to fear that Know-Nothingism in this district is a diabolical conspiracy 
against Democracy and Botts, that the Whig party has been disbanded to get 



264 



rd of that brave and glorious old Whig, and that he is to be cast adrift for 

e sake of the shoal ot minnows now nibbling at Judge Caskie How can 

he old Clay Wh.gs give in their adhesion to a new party which thus turns 

L' "!> ;f ,7 "^"" ^'". acknowledged leader of ^he'dd Whig par ; of 

couVtrfuL^^he" "^ ^^ ^°"^"- ^^^ offices oi^^the 

i^uuniry upon llieir ablest men, how supremely funnv i>^ it tr, thr.,of t> ** 

as.de, refuse to allow him to be enteredSor the' race 'nd to wrangle abo ^ 
the men whom the boding cauldron of Know-Nothingism have brought "o 
the surface in this district within the last tew weeks •^lou^nt to 

of the ' Imrn'oild' who S^^'^^"^"//" ^^e Whig party read their fate in that 
trim. immortal, whose immortality has been snuffed out. }3otts' " ex- 
measuiT"Xn T '"^A '' '"^", ^^^" ^ '^°''^' --ly vindication of Whi. 
Se n "w V^^^^^^^^ courage had fled into the dark caves o^f 

tnenew oidei The new order has treated Botts most inhumanly and to 
all intents and purposes, has ostracised him, as if he was a '' S'ner or a 
Roman Catholic. ' For we expect, that in the oath of the hrd' decree 
recently instiuted, there is a provision that Botts is never to be electe'd to 
office All of our poor friend's advances having been rejected hi want of 

e'v? inr; wm':,! '^H- °«^^'^''^.— -d, we cannZee h^w he\t- 
even i[ they will allow him— remain in such an order. 

rhey have disbanded the party of his long and never chan^ino- affections 

~ hTs dl'd of'co' ^V"^'?"^-r? ^^^ ""'^^*^^"' Adoniranrdedai^g tha 
It has died of corruption"— and why should Botts be chained like a blind 
Samson in this new temple of the enemy, to be made the sport and lau^h 
ing-stock of boys and renegade Democrats ? Why does he not cn-a n The 
pillar to which he is chained, imitate the slayer of the Phi istines torn foer 
the temple, and crush the bats and owls that infest it. Has Bot ts U ned a 
piues^^or a woman, that he will permit these slights and insultrto go Tpun! 

nurn°n"lh '^ ""^ ^'i ^'1 ["f ^^^?' '^ ^' '' '" ^^'^ ^'^'"^'^ ^"^ Christian mood to 
put on the apparel and take the staff of a pilgrim, and with feeble steps and 
•suppicating voice.. petition for admission iitoNhe sheepfold of Den oT^cy^ 

always aTTbold '" '''""''I/"' '°^'' ^"^ '^'^ ^^^^ ^^ °-- ^-^^s, but iT^^as 
rZn^ ^ ' hungry wolf-never as an assassin in sheep's clothin-. We 

can offer him no othce, but the sanctuary of Democracy is alway op;n to 
the pen.ten and destitute. He has no organ in this city-the Know-Nothin^ 
papei-s repel his advances-but has the Examiner ever deserted hiTj Have 
we not for seven years cheered him on in his wars against the rebellious 
epistnl\'"^ against_ that faction which, we are informed in a lo his 
pa y '' I the^rf n' '^ seeking his (my) destruction at the expense of the 
party. Is there an instance of the Examiner having deserted Botts ? For 
a time we had but one rival inconsistent affection ibr Botts-and that was 
Adomram. But we feel proud of the fact, that our advocacy of Bott III 
survived even he love of Adoniram, for we fear that he will Lt follow our 

altrBo^t:' VTf 'tf^%^''P"''^^^^"^ ^^^^""^'^ '' his old commant^^^'o 
ail ot Botts friends, the Examiner alone remains consistently faithful We 
have seen Screamersv ille and Rocketts desert-Darby Town" deny i lord- 

r^ llTo7bift"tref ' •" ^'^ f-^;T-^nd even Adoniram hoisfthe fl g of 
rebellion, but the Examiner stands firm. " Hurrah for Botts !" 



265 



Overthrow of the Legitimists— Downfall of Botts— Triumph of 
Tylerism— Squatter Sovereignty above par.— On Saturday night the 
Know-Nothings met in council to immolate Botts, to inaugurato squattier sov- 
ereignty and Tylerism, and to exterminate the last vestige of VVhiggery from 
this district. The result tells how complete was the overthrow^of the old 
regime. That Corsican usurper, the squatter from Powhatan, has seized 
upon the throne of the Bourbons, and Botts, Pcrrin, Griffin and Crane, have 
been exiled from the land of their fathers. The provinces proved too strong 
^r Botts' st.-ongholds in this city, and Butchertown, Screamersviile and 
Kocketts were routed by the regiments from the rural districts. The Old 
Guard, demoralized, dispirited and disheartened by the defection of lieutenant 
Adomram, fought not with their accustomed valor, and unused to the bush- 
ran^mg tactics of the new order, Avere no match for Scott's squirrel-huntino- 
militia from Louisa and Goochland. '^ 

rt is rumored that the contest waged most fiercely between the friends of 
Scott, Botts and Adoniram, but we have not heard it hinted that Messrs. 
Gilmer, Perrin, Rhodes and Coleman Avere suggested to the Convention in 
the very mildest manner. Nor, from what we have heard, do we imagine 
that the merits and services of Adoniram were properly appreciated^ by 
that august body, which played the part of Paris, and awarded the prize, 
to the disgruntlement of the rest of the neglected goddesses, to the fair claim- 
ant from Powhatan. We fear, had Mr. Crane sedulously harangued at our 
country court-houses respecting the cleansing virtues of grease-extracting 
soap, or beaten a tin pan for the delectation of his provincial auditors, that 
either of those enlivening and intellectual recreations would have furthered 
his prospects fully as much as his carniverous performances appear to have 
done. The people appear to have fancied Scott's facts, figures, scraps, alma- 
nacs and paragraphs far more than they did the damp oratorical pyrotechnics 
of the neglected Crane. ' . 

We tender to our disconsolate friend Adoniram our affectionate condolences, 
and the solemn assurances of our most distinguished commiseration. It is 
only with the aid of a slop bucket to receive the briny freshet of one eye, 
and of a sponge and large red bandanna to absorb the lachrymose deluo-e of 
the other, that we are able to pen this doleful narrative of his death and'suf- 
ferings. It is painful— it is heart-rending— it is grief absolutely insupport- 
able—to reflect that all of his labors were thrown ~away upon a perverse and 
unsraleful generation of vipers. Our blood boils with indignation at the 
thoughts of the infamous treatment which he has received from those for 
whom he abandoned the civilized duties of his profession and turned canni- 
bal. For naturally^our friend is not addicted to swallowing human beings 
like a boa constrictor, scalping them like a lawless Mohawk, or to devourin<^ 
steaks fresh from the thighs of fat Democratic orators, as if they were from 
the rump of a prize ox. 

_ This dietetic system we know must have been repugnant to all the civilized 
instincts of his refined nature. And what has been his reward for thus can- 
nibalizing and gorging himself with the bodies of men, whose disconsolate 
wives and fatherless children will hand down the name of Adoniram, black 
Avith curses and wet with the tears of the afflicted, to posterity. Tamerlane, 
li.ce Adoniram, erected a pyramid of human skulls; but the bloody Tartar 
won empires and wealth, whereas Adoniram has won nothing but indigestion, 
night-mares and a sore throat. Without knowing what was to be his melan- 
cnoly late, he wa= setting: the districts to rights and dcvuuiing the enemies of 
the man who has squatted on his domain, and robbed him of his anticipated 
congressional laurels. It turns out that poor Adoniram was merely a hard- 



266 

working;, energetic laborer for a gentleman who, although not twelve months 
a res^ident of the district, has managed to triumph over the leaders of the 
old Whig party. , 

What melancholy .evidence does this nomination afford of the decay of 
Whig greatness in the metropolitan district. Here, where for twenty-five 
years the city orators and lawyers have looked down and sneered contempt- 
uously at their provincial brethren, we have an ordinary country gentleman, 
with none of the graces of metropolitan oratory, plain and prosy as the 
heaviest of county court lawyers, respectable, honorable, and decent, but 
nothing more, squatting in the midsi of all the Whig lights of the bench, the 
bar and the hustings, and bearing off the palm, when there was not one of 
the late prominent Whigs of the district who would not have given his eyes 
for the nomination. 

Mr. Scott, from what we have seen and heard of his history and antece- 
dents, is a gentlemanly, educated, middle-aged man, of some forty-five or 
fifty years of age, who served a term or two in the Legislature very many 
years ago, and again represented Powhatan in the House of Delegates within 
the recollection of ourselves. His private virtues have secured him many 
devoted personal friends, and to these unobtrusive virtues he is doubtless 
indebted for his nomination. Through life we learn that he has been the 
victim of a very entertaining delusion, to the effect that nature designed him 
for a public speaker, when she intended nothing of the sort. His life has 
been a prolonged struggle and dispute with nature upon this subject, but like 
Mrs. Partington in her celebrated contest for supremacy with the Atlantic 
ocean, nature has thus far held her own, and Mr. Scott, although well inform- 
ed and thoroughly posted, speaks in a very spavined and deplorably dull 
manner. Adoniram is equal to a dozen of him on the stump, and Botts to 
fifty thousand of him anywhere but in the caucus of the culvert. 

A forgotten circumstance in the history of Mr. Scott, as related to us by a 
friend, furnishes a clue by which his nomination can be explained and cleared 
up. ,It was to crush poor Botts to the very earth, to add insult to injury, to 
add that last straw under which the back-bone even of the camel snaps, that 
Mr. Scott was nominated, if the Ibllowing statement be correct — if it is not, 
we shall correct it in our next issue. It has been stated to us by a gentle- 
man of this city: "That Mr. Wm. C. Scott was, in 1844, a red hot ultra 
Tylerite, and was a member of that funny little convention which nominated 
John Tyler for re-election in opposition to Henry Clay and James K. Polk." 
Was or was he not a member of that convention,? Did he or did he not 
occupy, in 1844, for a time, a position of antagonism to Botts and all the 
leaders of the Whig party of this district in his devotion to the fortunes of 
John Tyler ? 

The information which we have received comes in such a form and from 
such a source that we feel constrained to propound these'questions : If, when 
Botts and the old guard, in the prime and vigor of the Immortal's best days, 
-were thus bearded by the squatter from Powhatan, and the latter was then a 
Tylerite, and committed the deadly and unpardonable sin for which Mr. Wise 
has been so often and unmercifully denounced, what will the Botts men do? 
How will they brook this most humiliating of all the insults yet thrown in 
the face of Botts? To forget the transcendent talent of Botts, to fail to 
reward the gluttony of Crane, to pass by the splendid claims of Perrin, Gil- 
mer, Griffin, Coleman, Rhodes, were detestable crimes, — but for the Know- 
Nothings to import a Tylerite from Powhatan, and make an idol of the man, 
was a more hideous iniquity than infanticide or parricide. 

Genllemcn of the old guard, indomitable survivors of Ihe grand Clu,y army, 
behold your leader — a stranger and a Tjlcnlt: ! Oh, Botts ! venerable and 
remarkable old man, has it come to this, that one of the humblest of the fol- 



267 ♦ 

lowers of 3''onr old foe should be placed over your head? How liavc the 
mighty fallen ! Who expected to live long enough to see Bott.s doing hom- 
age to "« T)ihriie," and Adonirain Crane in a state of insurrection and 
Pebelliou? Where can Botts fly ? — what is to become of him? Know- 
Nothingism throws a Tylerile at his head — Adoniram swears that the Whig 
party has died of corruption, and the old guard (ly before the undisciplined 
militia of the counties. Oh Ricliard, oh my prince, they are all deserting 
thee ! Believe not their false promises of election to the Senate of the Uni- 
ted States, for the same promises, flattering, but false, have been made to 
every grumbling old Whig in the state. 

At the command of Gen. Tyler Scott, late of Powhatan, you must fall into 
the ranks, or have your sturdy head chopped off. You are now the lieutenant 
of a Tylerite — a sepoy of the household of the usurper, who sits upon your 
old throne and cracks the whip over your venerable head, and will touch you 
on the raw if you do not pull steady in the traces. If, venerable, neglected, 
and badly treated friend, you need just at this time a safety valve for the 
escape of any superfluous wrath which may have collected since last Satur- 
day night, we conjure you to wallop Jldoniram. Spring upon him with the 
yell and erect, vibrating tail of a wounded and enraged lion, insert your 
teeth in the nape of his neck, and shake him either into subjection or to a 
jelly. The experiment would be a safe one, for Adoniram, like yourself, oh 
Botts! ssems to have no friends. At him, old Bengal! Give it to him, 
antique Lybian ! 



The attempt of the Know-Nothing party to array the prejudices of the 
Protestant clergyman of this state against the Democratic party, were inces- 
sant, but in most instances unavailing. The press of the new organization 
in vain attempted to arouse the prejudices of the various Protestant churches 
against the doctrines of religious toleration and religious liberty. 

Some of the strongest arguments against the peculiar opinions of the 
Know-Nothings, were embodied in the communications which appeared in 
the Examiner and the Enquirer, from the pen of eminent clergymen. We 
select the following from a number which were published during the 
canvass : 

Patriotic Sentime.\ts of an Eminent Clergyman in Virginia. — As a 
clergyman of an inveterately Protestant denomination of Christians, I have 
been politely requested by a distant friend, who belongs to the same church, 
to give liim, through the columns of your paper, my views of the new half 
religious and half political chain of secret clubs, called Know-Nolhings. I 
should have very little objection to complying with this request, reasonably 
made, at any tjme ; but feel the less disposed to decline, when requested by- 
one of those whose oflicial teacher I am by the constitution of a church 
■svhich we have both voluntarily joined. 

The church with which we are both connected is as thoroughly Protestant 
as any on earth. It has as little of persecution upon its historical escutcheon 
as any other church which is so old. I fear, however, that it has some 
spots of this kind. I blush more when those spots of persecution 
come before my mind than for anything else of the past. If one 
fervent prayer ascends from my heart to the Father of Mercies, con- 
ecrning the social shape of religion in our country, it is that it may 
never dip its hand in blood, that it may never become a suppliant to the 



♦ 268 

populace in the political club, and that it may never permit itself to be up- 
held by those arguments of tyrants or imbeciles: civil disabilities for 
opinion's sake. Such a resort is indeed capable of no other construction 
than as a confession of weakness. Wiien recently the Spanish Cortes had 
up the subject of religious liberty in Sprain, and after the discussion, delibe- 
rately resolved not to grant it, what Protestant puts any other construction 
upon it than that they declined to grant religious liberty, for fear the people 
would become Protestant? If they thought truth would uphold Roman Ca- 
tholicism, they would not wish to uphold it by civil pains and penalties. So 
it is with the Know-Nothing movement in the United States. It has un- 
questionably grown out of a want of confidence in the moral power of truth 
to uphold Protestantism. It has sprung up in the northern cities, where the 
principles of revealed religion have notoriously not much more positive 
power than they have in Papal countries. It has grown up among those 
who say they will trample the Bible under their feet, if it does not support 
the Maine Liquor law — or if it does not support Abolition — or whatever else 
may be the peculiar phase of their personal fanaticism. When tiuth re- 
treated to a distance from their mental visions, and they lost confidence in 
its power to withstand Popery, then they invented the scheme of with- 
standing the Catholics by a civil disability, a secret club, and a midnight 
oath. The writer is too much of a Protestant to be a Know-Nothing. He 
has a confidence too entire and unshaken in the power of the truth alone. He 
does not believe that this night club, this awful oath, or this infliction of 
civil disabilities on Catholics, is necessary to retain the power of Protestant- 
ism in this country. He protests against the inference that Protestantism 
needs any such assistance. He protests against the imputation of the perse- 
cuting spirit of Know-Nothings to religion. It has grown out of the wane 
o'f religion. It springs from nominal Protestants, who care, and think, and 
know nothing about the moral, and spiritual, and rational power of religion, 
except that it Is a strong principle. Their object is probably not the ad- 
vancement of true religion ; for if it was they would very easily see that 
persecution will do more than any thing else to build up the Roman Catho- 
lic church. 

And, if such was their object, they would see that the prevalence of Pro- 
testantism in this country, through the means of civil disabilities, would be 
just as hollow, and just as worthless, and just as empty a thing, as is the 
prevalence of Catholicism in Spain by civil disabilities. You must forever 
keep up the prop of civil disability when it is once set under, or else the 
■whole frame will fall. The history of the world shows, beyond a doubt, 
that there is always a reaction in the reasons of men, against that religion 
which the strong arm of power proposes to them. Cicero says the state re- 
ligion of old Rome was totally hollow, and the augurs knew it. There is a ma- 
jority of dissenters from the state religion to-day, in England, and in Scot- 
land, and an overwhelming majority in Ireland : there is said to be the same 
in Spain and Italy, if the hearts of men could speak out ; and there would 
have been in France, but for the existence there of somethlrf^ like religious 
freedom. 

The writer sends up fervent prayers to the Disposer of events, that this 
country may not be left to the judicial blindness of Know-Nothlngism, to 
persecute the Catholics into prosperity ; to confess the weakness of naked 
truth; to depart from the great American principle of perfect religious free- 
dom; to come down from our high and pure and noble position, and dabble 
in secret conclaves, in silly fears, in weak and nervous alarms. Know- 
Nothinglsm has not, then, grown out of religion. It did not start in the 
Protestant church. All it had to do with religion, was to observe that the 
religious prejudice of the country was a strong lever with which to work 



269 

another purpose. It made use of that lever as a tool, just as the political 
parties had made use of military renown as their lever before. 

Their purpose, probably, is to play with the raw head and bloody bone 
fears of the Pope, which infests the dreams of nervous people, in order to 
cajole the country, and get on their side the religious prejudice, and, in the 
mean time, to do their real work in secret. 

The liberties of this country may be in danger from Popery. No man can 
well think too hardly of that inveterate system. But does it make a great 
deal of dilFerence to us, whether our liberties are taken away by secret 
Jesuit clubs, or by secret Know-Nothing clubs? But this quarrel with 
foreigners is a northern affair altogether. We never had much temptation to 
it, here in the South, where the social spirit is as much more benign as the 
climate is. After all, it is not the religion of the foreigners which is object- 
ed to. And if it was, I believe that John Mitchel's religion is just as good, 
to all practical intents and purposes, as Ward Beecher's religion ; and his 
politics ten thousand times more patriotic than Ward Beecher's. John Paul 
Jones was a better American, to my heart, though born in Scotland, than 
" Hull, the traitor," though born in Massachusetts. I^ think that the Mar- 
quis La Fayette was a far better American, though born in France, than 
Benedict Arnold, though born in Connecticut. I give the preference to 
Count Pulaski, Baron Steuben, and " lighthorse " Lee, though they were 
foreigners, over Aaron Burr, Gen. Winder, and Gen. Wilkerson, though na- 
tive Americans. 

The people here used to know that religion and patriotism were not to be . 
ascertained by these external circumstances. The traitors Avhom this coun- ,' 
rry has to fear, are not foreigners. They are men who were born and live 
where Hull and Arnold were born and resided. Their treason is deep, de- 
liberate and meditated for a long time. 

The clamor against foreign traitors, from whom no man can show us a single 
case where we have suffered anything recently, or much ever, or been ever 
in any great danger, is all a make-weight. That clamor is but a mere avail- 
ability. It is but a new form of appeal to military glory. It is the dust 
with which the eyes of the southern people are to be blinded, while in se- 
cret club we shall be abolitionized, as they boast that we shall be. It is a 
peice of cold, cautious, yankee cunning, by which the northern people, at 
one stroke, get us to help them against their rivals in labor, the immigrant 
foreigners, and by which they will soon ask us for another tariff of protec- 
tion to American industr}"^; by which they yoke us to their car to make us 
light their social battles ; by which they gull and blind us to their real de- 
signs against our domestic peace and prosperity ; and by which the}' !-port 
with us as their tools, and avail themselves of our deep and positive religious 
convictions, in which they have no sympathy, and which they admire only 
for their strength as political engines. May a Higher Power deliver us from 
that deep blush with which we shall be suffused, if. our church — boldly, 
deeply, thoroughly Protestant as she is — falls into the trap in the slightest 
degree, and becomes the catspaw of northern treasonable designs. And may 
that kind Power open speedily the eyes of the people, to see in the light of 
every public development yet made by Know-Nothingism, what the real object 
of the movement is ! And may the sacred subject of the man's religious 
faith be once more withdrawn from the secret club-room, from the political cau- 
cus, and from the popular hustings, into that retirement to which it has a right, 
under the really, though not under the so-called, American principle! I do 
not know whether I have fully responded to my friend. If not, I hope to 
hear from him again. Rockingham. 



270 



AN APPEAI, TO THE CLERGY. 

Gentlemen : It is rumored that many of your body have become ashoclated 
with that political organization commonly called the Know-Nothings. If 
this is true, or if you sympathise with them, the writer of this deeply regrets 
your position. No one entertains a higher opinion of 3'our integrity than he. 
No one felt more indignant than he, when a Senator of Virginia assailed you 
in the councils of the nation, st3'ling you " a proud and self-opinioned body." 
This assault was unstatesmanlike, as it was undiscriminating and unjust. 
What if some of the Northern clergy signed an anti-Nebraska memorial, 
shall the whole class be proscribed for the sins of these fanatics ? It is not true 
that the clergy, as a body, are too proud and self-opinioned to listen to the 
truth. They yield a ready assent to the voice of reason, but they will not 
abide dictation. They may be drawn by a straw; they cannot be driven 
with a weaver's beam. And especially they will not listen with very great 
meekness to a rebuke "from those wlio, as the representatives of the nation, 
unbiushingly trample the laws of God and man under their feet by legislating 
on the Sabbath. They know their rights, and knowing will defend them. 

But while this is true of you, gentlemen, ma" there not be occasions when 
you might adopt an opinion too hastily with reference to the great political 
movements of the day. Such was, doubtless, the case with some who 
sio-ned that odious anti-Nebraska memorial. They signed it w^ithout consid- 
ering its import, and afterwards regretted their course. So may it be witii 
vou. You may have adopted an opinion with reference to the principles of 
the self-styled American party, which is erroneous. The writer of this- ad- 
dress, therefore, respectfully asks 3'ou to listen to what he has to say in op- 
position to the principles of this new party. The leading points of difference 
between this organization and those parties which have hitherto controlled 
the interests of the country, are — First, opposition to Roman Catholics, so 
far as to prevent any professing that faith from holding any political office in 
the gift of the people. Secondhj, excluding every man from participating in 
the administration of the government of the country, who was not born on 
American soil. 

With reference to the first, that of excluding Romanists from participating 
in the administration of our government, the writer would here avow, that 
there breathes not that man on earth more invincible than he, in his hostility 
both to Romish doctrines and Romish practices. He believes that Romanists 
are plunged into the deepest and most ruinous errors ; but he docs not be- 
lieve that men are to be won from error by political proscription. Satan 
argued on more philosophical principles, when he told God that if he would 
put forth his hand and afflict his servant, that Job would curse him to his 
face. The mistake of Satan lay in the application of the principle to the 
peculiar case of the man of Uz, and not the statement of the principle itself. 
The man of Uz saw the loving hand of a father in his sorrows, but unfortu- 
nately the rod which is laid on the Romanist, is not wielded by paternal 
hands. 

This subject has its political as well as its religious aspect. So far as 
its political aspect is concerned, this maybe said: that the Constitution of 
our country guarantees to every man in the land the right to profess^ and 
propagate his creed, provided only that he is a law-abiding citizen. This is 
as it should be. That the great charter of our liberty never contemplated 
any religious test to constitute a man a suitable person to hold an office under 
its purview. It is vain to say that you only exercise your rights as freemen 
to cast your votes for whom you please. In pledging yourselves to exclude 



271 

all persons from political oflices who hold the Romish faith, you do virfually 
require a rcli_2;iou.s test. You require at lea^t that your candidate sliali he a 
Protestant. The question is not, if two persons are equally qualitied to fill an 
olfice, the one a Romanist, the other a Protestant, which of the two you shall 
choose; but your principles force you to choose a man wholly unfit to fill the 
place in opposition to a man qualified in every respect to fill it, save that he 
is a Romanist. You would proscribe a Taney, or a Gaston, for his faith, and 
in his place elect a man in no respect qualified to discharge the duties of the 
office. Now if this is nort proscribing a man for his religious opinions, the 
writer is at a loss to know what it is. Leave this whole matter where the 
Constitution of the country leaves it. Judge each man by himself, and de- 
cide upon his own individual merits, but do not proscribe him for his faith. 
You cannot coerce a man to your opinion. He may adopt your shibboleth 
for the sake of gain, but you have only made a hypocrite, instead of a prose- 
lyte. If a man's religious opinions warp his judgment or blind his reason, so 
that in the face of truth, and at the expense of justice, he would favor his 
co-religionist, then hurl him with indignation from his seat as a perjured 
\vretch, who has desecrated the ermine. But if he be faithful to his trust, 
and decide by law and equity, between man and man, then do not put him 
under the political ban because he differs with you in his religious views. 
Truth will be promoted by this course. 

Again, look at this subject in its religious aspect. What is the language 
of your great commission? — " Go ye into all the world, and preach the 
gospel to every creature." You believe the Romanist in error, and so he is. 
But how will you reclaim him? How can you get his ear to pour into it 
the life-giving truths of the gospel, while you proscribe him politically ? Do 
you not understand human nature well enough to know that a man shuts up, 
and locks, and bars, and bolts his heart against the truth, the moment you 
assume towards him a hostile attitude? Treat him with kindness, and you 
will have won his ear by first winning his heart. No compromise of truth 
is demanded. But bear in mind that the gospel is a message of love, and 
its ministers should be " wise as serpents and harmless as doves." Besides, 
what more do you want? Are you not free as the air you breathe ? Have 
you not the best arena in the world on which to meet and grapple with er- 
ror ? How is error to be put down ? Is it not by presenting truth, its great 
^nd omnipotent antagonist, in such a way as to commend itself to the con- 
science of man ? Are you afraid that truth will not reach the Romanist? 
Then surely you adopt a singular method by which to reach him. Did 
Paul act so at Athens ? Did the Son of God act so in Judea? "Away 
with coward wiles !" The truth is great, and will prevail. Enlighten the 
people. INIeet error in the public assembly, meet it in the pulpit, meet it in 
the public conveyance, meet it by the fireside, and leave the results to God. 
If any people on earth have high vantage ground on which to stand and bat- 
tle for the truth, we are that people. We have an unshackled press ; we 
have a people who throng the hustings ; we have a people ready to listen 
to any who can instruct them. It does not agree with the genius of our 
government to meet open error by secret political conclaves. What is the 
chief glory of our nation? It is that every subject is openly and freely 
canvassed. When error mounts the car to traverse the length and breadth 
of the land, you can send truth with lightning speed along the telegraphic 
wires to anticipate it, or prove its effectual antidote. 

Besides, your course has not only an unhappy eflfect on the Romanist 
himself by steeling his heart against you, but you are awaking a sympathy 
in his behalf in the bosom of myriads who are outside of the Romanish 
communion. The writer of this has had occasion to notice the eflject of your 
principles on others. Yqu not only, as the great and magnanimous Chal- 



272 

iners says, " transform a nation of heretics into a nation of heroes," but 
3'ou engender sympathy for them among neutrals — you make men read 
with avidity such speeches as Chandler's and swallow as truth everything 
which is said in defence of Romanism. Such is human nature. You are 
thus playing directly into the hands of your foes. The Romanists want to 
be persecuted. They wnll fatten on it. They will appeal to it as a proof 
of apostolicity. They will draw round them thousands by the bonds of 
sympathy whom they will yoke to their car, and by whose aid they will 
spread their sentiments through the length and breadth of our land. 

Still more, the moment you league the cause of religion with any politi- 
cal party, you diminish the power of the truth. When religion became 
connected with the state, in the days of Constantine, it became corrupt. It 
was not the church which made advances to the state, it was the state to 
the church. The monarch of Christendom thought that he could have a 
powerful engine to carry out his designs in the religious prejudices of his 
subjects. He accordingly courted the alliance. The consequence was, that 
an ecclesiastico-political government was formed, and true religion was 
obliged to flee for safety to dens and caves of the earth. It has been so in 
all ages. Whenever the church of God has abandoned her own divinely 
appointed agencies and formed unholy alliances with Eelial, she has lost the 
prestige of her glorious name, and the shekinah of the divine presence de- 
parted from her. Gentlemen, beware how you allow a conglomerate of all 
creeds and isms, socialists, infidels, and political demagogues to lure you 
into their toils. Pure are you in your motives, but wofully are you in error 
if you think this the best means to serve your country, or spread the reli- 
gion of Jesus Christ. Adhere closely to the instructions of the Divine Au- 
thor of your faith. Preach the gospel. "The weapons of your warfare 
are not carnal," nor political. "What concord hath Christ with Belial, or 
what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?" 

Finally, consider the vast assimilative powers of your country. It is em- 
phatically Protestant in its complexion, though tolerating every creed under 
its banner. Thousands of foreigners seek our shores. In a few years these 
become completely assimilated to our government and prevailing religious 
views. In a few years, multitudes who were reared under Romish intluen- 
ces abroad, become Protestants. Five hundred Roman Catholic children 
in one of our western cities, lately marched in the Free School procession,^', 
each with a Bible under his arm; thus under the silent operation of educa- ' 
tional, social, and religious influences, ten Romanists annually become Pro- 
testants to one Protestant who becomes a Romanist. Let these influences 
alone. W^hy interpose, by drawing unnecessary and invidious distinctions, 
which, instead of attaching the Romanists to you, will only irritate him, and 
repel him from you. You know that his superstition is " to be destroyed 
by the spirit of Christ's mouth, and consumed by the brightness of his com- 
ing." Labor to hasten this great event by the spread of the gospel, but do 
not compromise the dignity of the truth by entangling alliances with men, 
who with a new-born zeal for Protestantism, are yet adopting principles and 
practices essentially Jesuitical. 

But the writer must reserve for another number his views on the Know- 
Nothing policy touching foreigners. In the meanwhile, gentlemen, he hopes 
you will review your position on this whole subject, and no longer allow 
men to mix religious issues with political questions. Be assured they do 
not have at heart the welfare of religion. They are only using it as an ele- 
ment to promote their own ends, and when it ceases to advance these, they 
will leave it to its fate. Respectfully, 

VERITAS. 



273 



DR. R. J. BRECKENRIDGE POLITICIAN. 



Mr. Editor: — A letter purporting to be written by the great and justly 
distinguit^hed Dr. Ro. J. Breckcnridge, has been copied from the Kentucky 
press into the papers of Virginia, just on the eve of the election, and for the 
purpose of affecting it. This policy is certainly a shrewd one. No name in 
America carries such weight with it in large sections of the southern com- 
munity as the name of this unquestionably great and brilliant man. For 
years the ablest and fiercest champion of Protestant Christianity in this coun- 
try, distinguished for controversial talent, high in social position, reputation, 
and purity of character, and speaking from the leading chair in a large Pro- 
testant school of theology, his endorsation of the political movement desig- 
nated by the name Know-Nothingism, is calculated to do infinite mischief to 
the cause of truth, by throwing an air of respectability even upon those pe- 
culiarities which some of its own advocates deprecate as foreign to the spirit 
of our government, and especially by creating the impression that this move- 
ment against the Catholic church is endorsed by the Protestant ministry' at 
large. It is to do what in us liee, to counteract these impressions, and as a 
Protestant minister, who by no means stands alone in opposition to a political 
movement for the suppression or restraint of Popery, to protest, in the name 
of the great doctrines of religious liberty, against all such constructions of 
the views of the Protestant clergy. No doubt there are thousands of those 
who do sympathize with this movement ; but it is equally true that there are 
fully as many, perhaps more, who dread to lose an end proper in itself pur- 
sued by improper means, and who dare not desire the ostracism of the Papacy 
itself at the expense of those great principles of religious liberty which 
lie at the foundation of all the prosperity enjoyed by every ecclesiastical 
organization in the land. We do not mean to follow Dr. Breckenridge through 
his remarks in the way of reply. Indeed his letter is nothing but a series of 
terse and animated statements, giving the' views which he has taken of the 
present crisis in political affairs, and not the reasons upon which they are 
founded. But we except to the whole spirit of this article, as well as to the 
movement it endorses ; but particularly to the apology which he makes for 
that feature in the organization for which no apology can ever be made, for 
which no atonement can ever be rendered but a peremptory and final aban- 
donment of the whole of it. 

We cannot endorse Dr. Breckenridge's sanction of a political movement to 
stay the progress and power of the Catholic church. It contains a confes- 
sion of weakness in the moral machinery of the Protestant churches, an in- 
ability to meet all the influences of the great apostacy or the institutions of 
this nation, which we feel intensely to be a misrepresentation of the facts. 
There is a power in the Protestant church alone, unaided by a political move, 
which needs only to be fully and wisely expended, to demonstrate the entire 
want of any necessity to supplement her weakness by a political crusade. 
The simple and sufficient condition of the preservation of the republic from 
the arts of Romanism, is the extension of the Protestant church, the full sup- 
port of the great Domestic Mission enterprises of the various Protestant 
denominations. If Protestantism cannot maintain itself in a fair field against. 
Popery, it ought to perish. But there is no need for any such catastrophe:- 
it does possess that capacity; and it is a practical acknowledgment of Pro- 
testant weakness, which is as unjust to the Protestant church as it is pro- 
scrlptive to the Catholic, to represent the destruction of the political franchises 
of the Catholic citizen as essential to the prosperity of the PFotestant reli- 
gion, or to the conservation of any of the great social or political interests 
18 



274 

which are dependent upon it. Such a dependence we do believe to exist be- 
tween the Protestant religion and the institutions of this country ; they were 
established together on this continent, and they will stand or fall together. 
But so long as the Protestant religion is a living and vital element in forming 
the character and controJing the action of the masses of American citizens 
as it is at present, so long will the institutions of this nation, the nationality, 
the Federal Union and the Protestant civilization, of Avhich Dr. Breckenridge 
spieaks, be safe under the moral and spiritual power of the Protestant 
churches, unaided by any political disabilities inflicted upon the individual 
Catholic citizen. 

We do not mean to say that no political action is never to be taken against 
the Catholic church or against any Protestant church. But we do mean to 
say that such political action against any ecclesiastical organization ought to 
be local and temporary, and above all things discriminated by the practical 
action of the organization, and not by its principles when held in theor}'. 
We do not hesitate to sa}', if the Catholic church is coming into the political 
field as such, its members voting on a principle discriminated by their eccle- 
siastical relations, then it ought to be met on political grounds and resisted 
with political weapons. We would say this for the same reasons and with 
equal emphasis of any Protestant church. We would say it of a Masonic 
order which should engraft a political character on its Masonic capacity. 
Nay, more, it is unquestionably true that the Catholic church does lay claim 
to temporal power, holds the state as auxiliary to the church, and under pre- 
tence of deciding his duty, announces the right to control the whole action of 
man, which is susceptible of a moral character. There is this much of the 
truth in the theory of Know-Nothingism, but it does not answer the purpose 
of that party. With the fatality which seems to attend all its reasonings 
from its premises, the modern reform fails to see the true logical result of its 
premise. The principle which we have enunciated as controling political 
opposition to all ecclesiastical bodies. Catholic or Protestant, makes all such 
opposition local, temporary, defined b}^ the previous action of the church 
itself, not by its theoretical principles, controlled absolutely by that action, 
stopping when it stops, progressing when it progresses, and ceasing forever 
when it ceases. To ostracise a Catholic for theory not embodied in practice, 
no matter how objectionable that theory may be both on political and religi- 
ous grounds, is to punish crime in embryo ; it is to assume the office of deity 
and judge criminalities of the soul before they are embodied in action or 
subject to the cognizance of human tribunals. All interference with princi- 
ples of such magnitude as the liberty of conscience and religious worship, 
ought to be rigidly adjusted to the strictest limits of the practical exigency 
that demands it. If the Cathohc church has been tampering with politics in 
any other state, let it be met there ; but it would be wrong to suffer the 
demand for such opposition to extend beyond the exigency which demands 
it, and to call for the ostracism of the church in Virginia, unless it can also 
be shown to have been tampering with politics here. Until this is proved, a 
political disfranchisement of her members to any extent is a violation of the 
law of religious liberty, and a high misdemeanor. There is no demand 
whatever for a great national movement against the Catholic church. There 
may have been cause for local and temporary displays of political opposition 
to it, but certainly none for an opposition co-extensive with the republic. It 
is in the main a corrupt movement of unprincipled politicians to excite the 
Protestant feeling of the country and ride into power upon the tide. 

The remark thus made, that the inference of Know-Nothingism in relation 
to the political opposition to the Catholic church, was a logical blunder from 
its own preniises, which only warranted a local and limited opposition, not a 
permanent and universal ostracism of individual Catholics, is equally true in 



275 

relation to the other great issue it has raised as to the foreign population. 
On all its positions it is logically required to go a great deal farther than it 
dares attempt. In one case the premise is, the Catholic church is incompati- 
ble with the existence of the republic; the inference is that no Catholic shall 
be eligible to olHce. The true and legitimate inference is, the Catholic 
church ought not to be tolerated at all ! 

The premise assumed in this case is, that the foreign element in our popu- 
lation is dano-erous to the government : the inference drawn is the reduction 
of a part of the rights of citizenship in foreigners already here, and an ex- 
tension of the term of naturalization. The true inference is the prohibition 
of all emigration for the future, and the avoidance of everything that would 
exasperate the foreign element already in the midst of us, the careful observ- 
ance of everything which would tend to strengthen their attachment to the 
institutions of the country. How well the modern reform in the political 
world is accomplishing these ends, it is easy to determine. Leaving in the 
hands of the Cathohc and foreign citizens all the rights of citizenship except 
one, giving; them the power to vote, allowing them, in other words, all their 
power to do mischief, and exasperating them to use it by the ostracism of 
their religion and birth, condensing the Catholic and foreign element into a 
pohtical body, distinct from the m.ass of the nation, and animated with all the 
hostility which is natural \o men under an attempt to diminish the equality 
of their rights with other citizens ; producing all these ruinous results, Know- 
Nothingism is par excellence the perfection of political wisdom, the certain 
salvation of the country ! If the abandonment of one of the greatest of the 
great principles of our political system, if political proscription for religious 
opinion is to be substituted for the great doctrine of unequivocal liberty of 
religious belief, irrespective of all political or civil responsibihty, then the 
existence of this government is brought into infinitely more peril than that 
from which the new party would deliver it. Dr. Breckenridge intimates that 
if the question had arisen as to the eligibility of a Chinese or a Mahomme- 
dan,less difficulty would have been found in settling it. We reply, that the 
general principles involved would have been settled by the settlement of a 
previous question ; and that is, whether we should admit a Chinese or a ]\Ia- 
hommedan. Pagans and Idolators, to the rights of citizenship at all in a 
Christian supporting country. This determined in the affirmative, it is ab- 
surd to question the propriety of allowing by vote what is allowed by law. 
If there is any reason why they should be excluded from any of the com- 
mon rights of citizenship, it is a reason why they should be excluded from 
all of them. If it is right to allow them to vote, it is right to allow them to 
be voted for : the one right is almost the correlative of the other. Any 
argument which would prove a man disqualified for office, would equally 
prove him disqualified to vote. If, then, this opposition to Catholics and for- 
eigners is to be maintained, let it go far enough to accomplish the ends which 
are alleged to be sought. It is unwise in the extreme to leave all their pow- 
er for mischief in their hands, resulting in part from their simple existence 
in the country as a part of the population, and in part from the privileges 
which are still to be left them ; it is unwise to leave them their power for 
mischief and exasperate them to use it by a crusade against their full politi- 
cal equality with citizens of other religious opinions. 

But we must not protract these remarks. We cannot close them, how- 
ever, without protesting, in opposition to the endorsement of Dr. Brecken- 
ridge, against the propriety of a secret organization as a mode of political 
action, and especially against the particular oath of that modern party binding 
its members to concealment of the objects of the order, the order itself, and 
their personal connection with it. What are the objects of this order which 



276 

have not been proclaimed ? If those which are blazoned on their ban- 
ners are not all of their objects, what are the rest? If they are, why have 
these been proclaimed in the teeth of that oath ? Is it a secret police, as we 
have heard it intimated? Does not the possibility that this order may have 
ultimate ends in view which they have not yet discovered, demonstrate the 
impropriety of that mode of organization which would allow of such con- 
cealment and require it to be maintained b}' an oath ? If ever any principle 
was at direct and practical war with the very foundation of the American 
republic, it is this principle of an oath-bound secret organization. It will 
place the legislation of Congress in the hands of an irresponsible association 
of its members — into a body unknown to the Constitution of the United 
States, and whose avowed object is to annihilate all distinction between a 
minority and a majority, by an oath requiring the unlimited surrender of the 
minority! The Congressional Council will be under orders of the General 
Council; and the result will be that the Congress of the United States will 
become, under the full success of Know-Nothing principles, a mere registry 
of decrees to a body in the heart of the country — unknown to the Constitu- 
tion — existing no one can tell where — aiming at no one can tell what. It 
strikes a deadly blow at that great fundamental maxim of the government — 
the necessity of the intelligence of the people as an essential of republican 
liberty. What matter how much intelligence the people may have, if politi- 
cal men will conceal from them the facts upon which to employ their intelli- 
gence in the formation of a judgment and the adoption of a policy ? The 
two duties are essentially correlative. If it is the duty of the people to 
require knowledge of any party claiming their suffrages before they endorse 
them, it is the duty of that party to give it. No party has the right to retire 
into the dark, bind itself to secrecy under oath, unfold what they please, and 
conceal what they please from the people ; nor have the people one shadow 
of a moral right to give their sanction to that of the propriety of which they 
are not fully informed. Moreover, if their principle of secrecy is legitimate 
for one party, it is legitimate for all; every party may adopt it; the Sag. 
Nicht clubs of the foreigners of the west are wholly justified ; and the whole 
political destinies of the country may be controled by secret oath-bound 
orf-anizalions, a hybrid mixture of Masonry, and a political caucus with allot 
good in either spoiled by the conjunction! Can any man in this nation con- 
tem.plate such a prospect — the legitimate results of the principle of organiza- 
tion adopted by the Know-Nothing party — w^ithout emotions of alarm amount- 
ing to terror? Yet Dr. Brickenridge would place such a principle on the 
footing of the vote by ballot ! This is the most remarkable instance of the 
power of prejudice to extinguish the power of perception, in an intellect of 
the hio-hest order, we have ever encountered. Dr. Johnson's belief in the 
Cock-Lane ghost is hardly comparable to it. 

In conclusion, we must say that the issues pledged upon the fidelity of the 
Democratic party of Virginia, cannot be fully estimated in their intrinsic 
value. We trust they will show at the polls that Dr. Breckenridge has been 
premature in his claim of conquest for Know-Nothingism over the Democra- 
cy of the Old Dominion. Be the fate of the party victory or defeat in the 
ensuing election, the war upon the heresies of the new party will have just 
begun. The great principles of religious liberty and open organization in 
political parties, in a republican government, will never be abandoned until 
they are embodied in practice as well as commended in theory — two things 
which the Know-Nothing party have taught us to consider carefully apart 
from all connection with each other. Let the whole power of the party be 
strained to the uttermost; let all the objections to the candidate, which might 
have been enough to have justified inaction in his support in ordinary times, 



277 

now give way in a crisis which involves the very existence, not merely of 
Democratic measures, but of the fundamental principles of all republican 
institutions. It is a great battle. God help the right. 

A Protestant Minister. 



The pretensions of the Know Nothings to peculiar reverence, for the teach- 
ings of the Bible, were vindicated in the Examiner in the following editorial : 

A SERMON FROM LEVITICUS FOR " SAM." 

When the sans cvlottcs of the secret order of Jacobins were, with foul and 
bloodstained hands, dragging the noble, beautiful and gifted Madame Roland 
to the guillotine, and in the name of liberty moistening the streets of Paris 
with the blood of the Girondists, that illustrious woman, gazing at the bright 
deadly steel that was soon to sever her fair head, exclaimed, " Ob ! Liberty, 
how many crimes ha;ve been committed in thy name I" When we find a secret 
order in our midst, in the name of the Bible and of patriotism, practising pro- 
scription, intolerance, and worse than savage inhospitality, the fearful truth of 
Madame Roland's dying words must come home to every calm and dispassionate 
friend of religion and liberty. 

The Know Nothings, in the name of the holy Christian religion, and in the 
name of patriotism, propose disregarding the plainest teachings of the priest 
and the true meaning of the host. Particularly do they proclaim that their 
midnight mission is the purification of the Church, and the preservation of our 
civil liberties. Like Henry VIII., who, according to Hume, exhibited his im- 
partiality by hanging Catholics and burning Protestants, they claim the title of 
'' defenders of the faith." 

Professing to regard the pure teachings of the Bible as of paramount impor- 
tance to everything earthly, seeking to purge the land of Jesuits and heretics, 
their principles are utterly at variance with the teachings of that human law 
maker, who, upon Mount Sinai, received from a Supreme Being the living word. 
This " Lwn of the North and Bulwark of the Christian faith " plants its 
standard, or rather organizes its conspiracy, upon the disregarded teachings of 
God through his chosen instrument. The Know Nothing who, amid the im- 
posing mysteries and solemn ceremonies of midnight initiation, swears with up- 
lifted hand to defend the true teachings of the Bible, in the ^?imQ formula swears 
to violate one of the most simple, plain and intelligible lessons of that sacred 
volume. Whoever, therefore, takes the oaths required by this order, pledges 
himself to violate the Constitution, and to maintain doctrines irreconcilable with 
every species of Christian faith, whether Protestant or Catholic — for neither 
Catholics nor Protestants openly deny the very strongest and plainest doctrines 
of the Holy Bible. " Sam," however, as he is familiarly termed, has taken the 
field not only against the Catholic religion, the Constitution and Democracy, 
but also against Moses and the Projjhets. 

One of the pretexts of " Sam " for his hostility to the Catholics, is that they 
exclude the Bible from their schools — a grave and heavy fault — one to be 
looken into and punished. But if the Catholics are to be proscribed for this 
crime, what punishment should not Sam receive for rearing the structure of his 
order, digging its very foundations out of the disregarded, despised teachings 
of the great and inspired law-maker? 

The civil polity of Moses, that which followed as a natural sequence to the 
Ten Commandments, the code framed in accordance with the organic law of 
Mount Sinai, certainly deserves the respect of Protestants. We, therefore, 



278 

respectfully ask the disciples of Sam to recoocile their teachings with the fol- 
lowing precept of Moses. Let them take their revered, but too often dese- 
crated Bible, upon which they swear their deluded victims, and turn to the 
Book of Leviticus, 19th chapter, o3d and 34th verses, and explain to us what 
Moses meant in the verses aforesaid : 

"IF A STRANGER SOJOURN WITH THEE IN YOUR LAND, YE 
SHALL NOT VEX HIM ; BUT THE STRANGER THAT DVVELLETH 
WITH YOU SHALL BE UNTO YOU AS ONE BORN AMONG YOU, 
AND THOU SHALT LOVE HIM AS THYSELF, FOR YE WERE 
STRANGERS IN THE LAND OF EGYPT. I AM THE LORD THY 
GOD." 

This language, we humbly suggest, is peculiarly simple, and it scatters the 
teachings of Sam like a bombshell. Sam is a true Protestant ; he boasts that 
his grandfather was a Protestant, his grandmother was a Protestant, and that 
Lis mother, father, uncles, aunts, cousins, nephews, wife, children and grand- 
children, are of the same persuasion. Sam and his brethren are the old guard 
of the Bible, defending the pure, unadulterated faith, flashing the bright sword 
of a pure and undefiled religion in the eyes of all who question anything which 
the sacred volume contains from Genesis to Revelations. It is therefore to be 
presumed, that having wandered often over this holy dominion, having conse- 
crated himself to the sacred work of defending the Bible, Sam is prepared to 
reconcile this text from Leviticus with his elegant sermons against foreigners 
and "strangers that are sojourning in the land." All of this he, doubtless, is 
prepared to do ; although, for reasons to us inexplicable, Sam has vouchsafed 
no revelations respecting this passage from Leyiticus. Recollect, Sam, thou 
"guard of the Bible and defender of the faith" — Leviticus, 19th chapter, 33d 
and 34th verses. We know that it is hard, Samuel, either in courts of law or 
in social converse, to get intelligible answers from you. But the Bible, Sam — 
the Protestant Bible — you certainly will not say that you " Know Nothing " 
about that. In the name of Moses, we, therefore, pious, religious, consistent 
Sam, venture to ask you a few simple questions concerning the 33d and 34th 
verses of the 19th chapter of Leviticus, which, Sara, it may be well to state, 
incidentally, may be in what is called among good Protestants and sincere 
haters of the Pope, the Old Testament. 

Do you or do you not " vex strangers loho sojourn with thee in your land ?" 
You swear to turn them out of office. You swear to proscribe them, do you 
not? Do you regard such treatment as a vexation or a pleasantry where the 
ejected " stranger" happens to starve in consequence of your " little pleasantry" 
in turning him out of office. 

Moses, you will observe, (perhaps you " Know Nothing," biblical Sam, of 
Moses,) says, under special instructions from God, that " the stranger that dwel- 

leth icith you SHALL be UN'TO YOU AS ONE BORN AMONG YOU." Do you not 

not proclaim ^Uhat strangers ivho dwelleth among you SHALL NOT BE UNTO 
YOU as those who were born among you ?" Do you not in every thing which 
relates to your creed, fly in the face of divine law, denying the wisdom of God 
and man ? 

Have you not organized your midnight Order for the express purpose of cast- 
ing the stranger out — of showing him by hateful and unconstitutional acts that 
you do not intend to treat him as if he was horn among you ? Is it not most 
remarkable that, as a self-elected defender of the faith, you propose to set aside 
the law of Moses to amend the word of God, and declare with the superior sa- 
gacity of a Know Nothing that you are more knowing in your generation than 
Moses was in his? (What is your opinion as to Moses being a fogy ?) Do 
you entertain as low an opinion of the book of Leviticus as you do of the Con- 



279 

stitution ? Do you regard Judson, Bennett, Clayton, Wilson and Vespasian 
Ellis as much better law makers than Moses ? Is the blue book of your Order 
higher and better authority than the Old Testament 't But most scriptural 
Sammy — thou modern evangelist of the dark lanterns and frightful oaths — Mo- 
ses also says, in his old-fashioned way, thou shalt '' love the stranger sojourning 
in thy land as tliT/sclf." Dost thou obey the Bible in this regard ? Do you 
love Irish, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, French, Swiss, Danish, Norwegian, Scotch, 
Patagonian, Chinese, Mexican "strangers" as you do ijotvrself ? Have you a 
great love for the alien, an overflowing affection for the foreign born, or have 
you not sworn, yes, sworn, in your midnight deliberations, to persecute the 
strangers " within your gates ?" Of these matters, however, of course, you 
" Know Nothing." If you love the strangers, how have you shown your af- 
fection ? By burning their churches, denying them bread, driving them from 
the ballot box, denying them the rights of citizenship, and mobbing them in 
the streets of your great cities. In thus treating them, how have you interpre- 
ted the Bible ? — certainly not as Protestants — but rather, (we regret to say it, 
Sam,) as hard-hearted, cruel disregarders of the spirit of Christianity. 

The 33d and 34th verses of the 19th chapter of Leviticus apply so forcibly 
and appropriately to Sam's position in this country, that we almost feel inclined 
to believe that Moses, rending the veil which hides the future from ordinary 
mortal eyes, must have foreseen the rise and progress of Sam, and thousands 
of years ago provided for his annihilation. For after thus advising the Israel- 
ites, he concludes the 3-ith verse thus : " For ye were strangers in the land of 
Egypt." How significant the warning, how impressive the reminiscence. The 
chosen people of God were once aliens and foreign born in the land of Egypt. 
Pharaoh and his people were native Egyptians, proud of their nationality, in- 
solent and tyrannical, lauding it with a high hand over the poor Israelites, de- 
nying them social and political rights, making them hewers of wood and draw- 
ers of water, grinding the strangers into the dust, practising modern Know 
Nothingism without its secrecy, in a bold, open, cruel oppression of the "stran- 
gers sojourning among them." The wrath of God fell upon the Know Nothings 
of the order of Pharaoh ; plague followed plague, and pestilence, famine and 
war desolated the land of the oppressors. Death visited the household of every 
native Egyptian ; a leader chosen by God led the oppressed through a sea 
whose waves, at His command, opened a way for their retreat, and closed over 
the hosts of the pursuing enemy. This may seem fanciful and far fetched, but 
it should teach the oppressor and the Know Nothing that " ?t'e loere strangen 
in the land of Egypt." This fair laud was not God's heritage to us. The na- 
tive Americans have passed away, and we European interlopers have built up 
our palaces upon the sites of their wigwams, — cities stand where the villages of 
the natives once stood, and the ploughshare is driven over the burying grounds 
of those to whom God gave the land. 

We are strangers of yesterday in this land ; — war, pestilence and famine, in- 
troduced by ourselves, have swept those from the land to which God gave them 
title deeds. The relics, the monuments, the antiquities of America are not 
ours. " Sam," a miserable European exile of yesterday, flying from worse than 
Egyptian bondage at home, to this land of the oppressed of every clime, denies 
the same precious privileges to the exile of to-day. In doing this, be forgets 
his origin, the character of our institutions, and the history of the land which, 
he inhabits. He disregards the Constitution, and he forgets the divine teach- 
ings of God and of Moses. Hence this sermon. 



280 

To the charge every where preferred by the Know Nothings, that the Exa- 
miner and the Enquirer were Catholic organs, the Examiner published the fol- 
lowing reply : 

Civil incapacitations tend only to beget habits op hypocrisy and 
meanness. opinions op religion shall in no manner diminish or 
affect THE CIVIL CAPACITIES OF THE CITIZEN. — Virginia Act of Reli- 
gious Toleration. 

Nothing dies so hard and rallies so often as Intolerance. — Sydney Smith. 

"Catholic organ !" is the favorite ejaculation of the advocates of intolerance 
against their opponents in the present canvass. The epithet supplies the place 
and substitutes the purpose of argument in the mouths of men weak enough in 
mind to fear that these free and powerful States are in danger of temporal sub- 
jection from the poorest and weakest of the European Princes. Historical Jore 
they indeed have at command to foment this morbid apprehension : but it is 
lore borrowed from the dark ages and from persecuting, intolerant Europe — it 
is lore that has lost its terrors even on the intolerant side of the Atlantic, when 
Catholic Emperors have repeatedly taken the Pope — that most formidable tem- 
poral prince, prisoner in his sacred city, and led him into ignominious captivity ; 
and where, even within the recollection of very small children, that same Po- 
tentate, whose authority is pretended to overshadow all the goverments of the 
earth, was driven out of Rome by a handful of domestic revolutionists. . 

Native born Americans who terrify at the thought of a Papal subjugation, 
must be excused for rummaging up the exploded and forgotten lore of benighted 
and intolerant ages, and for denouncing as " Catholic organs," those who laugh 
at their folly and deride their farrago of nonsense about Popish invasion and 
subjugation. 

The Rev. Sydney Smith, a staunch supporter of the English Church Estab- 
lishment, has supplied us with language suitable to the cases of these cowardly 
terrorists, in the following happy description of a modern Know Nothing : 

" Philagatharches is an iastance (not uncommon, we are sorry to say, even 
among the most rational of the Protestant dissenters) of a love of toleration 
combined with a love of persecution. He is a dissenter, and earnestly demands 
religious liberty for that body of men ; but, as for the Catholics, he would not 
only continue their present disabilities, but load them with every new one that 
could be conceived. He expressly says that an Atheist or a Deist may be allowed 
to propagate their doctrines, but not a Catholic ; and then proceeds with all the 
customary trash against that sect which nine school boys out of ten now know 
how to refute. So it is with Philagatharches ; — so it is with weak men in every 
sect. It has ever been our object, and (in spite of misrepresentation and abuse) 
ever shall be our object, to put down this spirit — to protect the true interests 
and to diifuse the true spirit of toleration." 

So here is a " Catholic organ," after the Know Nothing sense of the word, 
in the person of a staunch clergyman of the Episcopal Church of England. 

In the same sense, Thomas Jefferson, who drew the Virginia act of religious 
toleration, the pith and gist of which stands at the head of this article cf ours, 
and who is generally understood to have been a Free Thinker on the subject of 
religion and church government, was also a " Catholic organ." Indeed, if this 
Know Nothing idea be true, that all defenders of religious freedom are " Catho- 
lic organs," we fear it will turn out, at last, that the proscribed denomination 
are very formidable in this matter of organship. George Washington and the 
whole convention of conscript fathers who formed the American Constitution 



281 

containing provisions in favor of the free exercise of rclujion and denouncing 
religious tests, against which the Higher Law Know Nothings of our day swear 
so great an oath, were in that sense '^ Catholic organs." Madison and Jackson, 
as will appear in another place in this sheet, were likewise in the same category 
of " Catholic organs." 

Not only were all good men of our earlier history amenable to this charge, 
but many bad men also; for the famous Thomas Paine wrote himself down a 
" Catholic organ" repeatedly and unmistakably, in defending the liberty of con- 
science ; as, for instance, thus : 

'' Toleration is not the opposite of intolerance, but is the counterfeit of it. 
Both are despotisms. The one assumes to itself the right of withholding liberty 
of conscience, and the other of granting it. The one is the Pope armed with 
fire and faggot, and the other is the Pope selling or granting indulgences. The 
former is Church and State, and the latter is Church and traffic. 

But toleration may be viewed in a much stronger light. Man worships not 
himself, but his Maker ; and the liberty of conscience, which he claims, is not 
for the service of himself, but of his God. In this case, therefore, we must ne- 
cessarily have the associated idea of two beings : the mortal who renders the 
worship, and the immortal being who is worshipped. Toleration, therefore, 
places itself, not between man and man, nor between church and church, nor 
between one denomination of religion and another, but between God and man : 
between the being who worships, and the being who is worshipped : and by the 
same act of assumed authority, by which it tolerates man to pay his worship, 
presumptuously and blasphemously sets itself up to tolerate the Almighty to 
receive it. 

Were a bill brought into any parliament, entitled, < An act to tolerate or 
grant liberty to the Almighty to receive the worship of a Jew or Turk ;' or, 
' to prohibit the Almighty from receiving it;' all men would startle and call it 
blasphemy. The world would be in uproar. The presumption of toleration in 
religious matters would then present itself unmasked : but the presumption is 
not the less because the name of ' man' only appears to these laws, for the as- 
sociated idea of the worshipper and worshipped cannot be separated. Who, 
then, art thou, vain dust and ashes ! by whatever name thou art called, whether 
a king, a bishop, a church or a state, a parliament or any thing else, that obtru- 
dest thine insignificance between the soul of man and its Maker ? Mine own 
concerns. If he believes not as thou believest, it is a proof that thou believest 
not as he believeth, and there is no earthly power can determine between you. 

With respect to what are called denominations of religion, if every one is 
left to judge of its own opinion, there is no such thing as a religion that is wrong : 
but if they are to judge of each other's religion, there is no such thing as a re- 
ligion that is right; and, therefore, all the world is right, or all the world is 
wrong. But with respect to religion itself, without regard to names, and as di- 
recting itself from the universal family of mankind to the divine object of all 
adoration, it is man bringing to his Maker the fruits of his heart; and though 
those fruits may differ from each other like fruits of the earth, the grateful tri- 
bute of every one is accepted. 

A bishop of Durham or a bishop of Winchester, or the archbishop who leads 
the dakes, will not refuse a tythe — sheaf of wheat, because it is not a cock of 
hay, nor a cock of hay, because it is not a sheaf of wheat, nor a pig, because it 
is neither one nor the other ; but these same persons, under the figure of an 
established church, will not permit their Maker to receive the varied tythes of 
man's devotion. 

One of the continual choruses of Mr. Burke's book is " Church and State :" 
he docs not mean some one particular Church, or some one particular State, but 
anti-Church and State : and he uses the term as a general figure, to hold forth 



282 

the political doctrine of always uniting the Church v?ith the State in every 
country^ and he censures the National Assembly fur not having done this in 
France. Let us bestow a few thoughts on this subject. 

All religions are, in their nature, kind and benign, and united with principles 
of morality. They could not have made proselytes at first by professing any- 
thing that was vicious, cruel, persecuting or immoral. Like everything else 
they had their beginning : and thus proeeeded by persuasion, exhortation and 
example. How is it then that they loose their native mildness, and become mo- 
rose and intolerant ? 

It proceeds from the connection which Mr. Burke recommends. By engen- 
dering the Church with the State, a sort of mule animal, capable only of des- 
troying, and not of breeding up, called the church established by law. It is a 
stranger, even from its birth, to any parent mother ou which it is begotten, and 
whom in time it kicks out and destroys. 

The Inquisition of Spain does not proceed from the religion originally profes- 
sed, but from the mule animal engendered between the Church and State. The 
burnings in Smithfield proceeded from the same heterogeneous production : 
and it was the regeneration of this animal in England afterwards, that renewed 
the rancour and irreligion among the inhabitants, and that drove the people 
called Quakers and Dissenters to America. Persecution is not an original fea- 
ture in any religion, but it is always the strongly marked feature in all law re- 
ligions, or religions established by law. Take away the law establishment, and 
every religion re-assumed its original benignity. 

In America, a Catholic priest is a good citizen, a good character, and a good 
neighbor ; an Episcopalian minister is of the same description ; and this pro- 
ceeds independently of the men, from there being no law establishment in 
America. 

If we also view this matter in a temporal sense, we shall see the ill effects it 
has had on the prosperity of nations. The union of Church and State has im- 
poverished Spain. The revoking the edict of Nants drove the silk manufacture 
from France into England : and Church and State are now driving the cotton 
manufacture from England to America and France. It is by observing the ill 
effects of it, in England, that America has been warned against it, and it is by 
experiencing them in France, that the National Assembly have abolished it : 
and, like America, have established universal right of conscience, and universal 
right of ciiizenshij)." — Paine s Riglits of Man, part \st. 

But better men and better moralists than Paine proved themselves "Catholic 
organs " in full as decided and able and instructive a manner. One of the 
most lucid and popular authors upon subjects of casuistry and religion, Dy- 
mond, writes thus : 

" A few, and only a few, sentences, will be allowed to the writer upon the 
great, the very great question of extending religious liberty to the Catholics of 
these kingdoms. I call it a very great question, not because of the difficulty of 
deciding it, if sound principles are applied, but because of the interests that 
are involved, and of the consequeiices which may follow if those principles 
are not applied. 

It is the writer's conviction, that full lleligious Liberty ought to be extend- 
ed to the Catholics, because it ought to be extended to all men. 

If a Catholic acts in opposition to the public welfare, diminish or take away 
his freedom ; if he thinks amiss, let him enjoy his freedom undiminished. 

To this I know of but one objection that is worth noting here — that they are 
harmless, only because they have not the power of doing mischief, and that 
they wait only for the power to do it. But they say this is not the case ; we 
have no such intentions ! Now, in all reason, you must believe them, or show 
that they are unworthy of belief. If you believe them, Religious Liberty fol- 



283 

lows of course. Can jou then show that they are unworthy of belief. Where 
is your evidence ? 

You say their allegiance is divided between the king and a foreign power. 
They reply ' It is not.' We hold ourselves bound, in conscience, to obey the 
civil government in all things of a temporal and civil nature, notwithstanding 
any dispensation to the contrary, from the Pope or Church of Home. 

You say their declarations and oaths do not bind them, because they hold 
that they can be dispensed from the obligation of an oath by the Pope. They 
rGply ' .tie do net.' We hold that the obligation of an oath is most sacred ; 
that no power whatever can dispense with any oath by which a Catholic has 
confirmed his duty of allegiance to his sovereign, or any obligation of duty to a 
third person. • 

You say they hold that faith is not to be kept with heretics. They reply, 
' TJe do not.' British Catholics say they have solemnly sworn that tliey re- 
ject and detest that unchristian and impious principle, that faith is not to be 
kept with heretics or infidels. These declarations are taken from a ' Declara- 
tion of the Catholic Bishops, the Vicars, Apostles, their co-adjutors, in Great 
Britain, 1825.' They are signed by the Catholic Bishops of Great Britain, 
and are approved in an ' address ' signed by eight Catholic Peers, and a large 
number of other persons of rank and character. 

Now, I ask of those who contend for the Catholic disabilities, what proof do 
you bring that these men are trying to deceive you ? I can anticipate no 
answer, because I have heard none. Will you, then, content yourselves by say- 
ing, we will not believe them ? This would be at least the candid course, and 
the world might then perceive that our conduct was regulated not by reason^ 
but by prejudice or the consciousness of power. It is unwarrantable to infer| 
a priori, and contrary to the professions and declarations of the persons hold- 
ing such opinions, that their opioions could induce acts injurious to the com- 
mon weal. But, if nothing can be said to show that the Catholic declarations 
do not bind them, something can be said to show that they do. If declarations 
be indeed so little binding upon their consciences, how comes it to pass that 
they do not make those declarations which would remove their disabilities, get 
a dispensation from the Pope, and so enjoy both the privileges and an easy con- 
science. Why, if their oaths and declarations did not bind them, they 
would get rid of their disabilities to-morrow ! Nothing is wanting but a few 
hypocritical declarations, and Catholic Emancipation is effected. Why do they 
not make the declarations ? Because their icords bind them. And yet, (so 
gross is the absur Jity,) although it is their conscientiousness which keeps them 
out of office, we say they are to be kept out because they ai-e not conscientious ! 
I forbear further inquiry, but I could not with satisfaction, avoid applying what 
I conceive to be the sound principles of political rectitude to this great ques- 
tion ; and let no man allow his prejudices or his fears to prevent him from ap- 
plying them to this, as to every other political subject. Justice and Truth are 
not to be sacrificed to our weakness and apprehensions ; and I believe that, if 
the people and legislature of this country (Great Britain) will adhere to justice 
and truth with regard to our Catholic brethren, they will find, ere long, that 
they have only been delaying the welfare of the Empire" — Di/mond's Essays 
on Moral it I/. 



Religious Toleration before the American Revolution. — More 
than a hundred years before the declaration of independence, the American 
colonies asserted, and the British monarchs granted, the great doctrines 
of religious tolerance. In 1662, the sovereign of England declared ='the 
principles and foundation of the charter of Massachusetts to be the freedom 



284 

of liberty of conscience !" But from the moment that the idea of making 
an English settlement in Maryland occurred to the just and high-souled 
Calvert, Lord Baltimore, which was early in 1600, the idea of religious tol- 
eration became as precious to American adventurers and settlers as the air 
which they breathed or the lives they had dedicated to the New World. In 
1636, every other country in the world had persecuting laws but Maryland ; 
and at that early day the oath of a governor of Maryland was : " I will not, 
by myself, or any other, directly or indirectly, molest any one professing to 
believe in Jesus Christ, for or in respect of religion. At a moment when 
the overthrow of the monarchy in the mother country Avas about to place in 
the hands of Cromwell, the embittered enemy of the Romism church, un- 
limited power, the Catholics of JNIaryland (April 21, 1649) placed the fol- 
lowing law upon their statute-book: " And whereas the enforcing of the 
conscience in matters of religion hath frequently fallen out to be of danger- 
ous consequence in those Commonwealths where it has been practised, and 
for the more quite and peacable government of this province, and the bet- 
ter to preserve mutual love and amity among the inhabitants, no person 
within this province, professing to believe in Jesus Christ, shall be any ways 
troubled, molested or discountenanced, for his or her religion, or in the free 
exercise thereof." The " friends of prelacy" who were disfranchised in 
Massachusetts, and the Puritans who were "vexed" in Virginia, were wel- 
comed to equal political and civil liberty in Catholic Maryland. The man- 
ner in which Lord Baltimore was persecuted and denounced — thrown out 
his rights by usurpers — and in turn proscribed by the very persuasion he 
had tolerated and protected — and yet his noble and constant adherence to 
the doctrine of religious freedom and political equality, whether in public or 
in private life — are embalmed in the history and in the remembrance of 
the world. 

High upon the roll of fame will shine the name of Lord Baltimore, made 
glorious in the person of Sir George Calvert, and sustained in that of his 
son, Cecil Calvert. At a time when the nation was overrun with the foes 
of the holy right of the freedom of conscience, J^ord Baltimore set an ex- 
ample that to tills day bears perennial blessings upon all. Ever green be 
his Immortal memory! The Ingrates w^ho assail the reputation of the illus- 
trious dead — their rude ribaldry over his honored grave — their ignorant de- 
nial of services that are printed in the pages of impartial history — will not 
deprive him of his claims upon the gratitude of all generations of civilized 
and Christian people. 

The progress of religious toleration in New England was marked by gi- 
gantic and almost incredible perils. The heart sickens over the recital. 
And in proportion as we feel proud and glad at the exhibition of the Catho- 
lic Calvert's liberal and generous policy in Maryland, we are oppressed and 
grieved by the details of Catholic persecutions in England during the reign 
of Mary. But the religious toleration which flourished under a Catholic 
proprietor in the New World grew up defiantly in the face of Catholic lUlb- 
erallty in the Old World. It was precious in both cases ; but more perilous 
to maintain and to defend in the latter than in the former. Nor were the 
Puritans much safer under the Protestant rule of Elizabeth. Proscriptive 
decrees were passed against them commanding conformity, and some of their 
most beloved leaders were executed. But still their increase in numbers 
could not be arrested. Under James they suffered fearfully ; and, finally, 
in order to worship God without the fear of man, and to be able to assert the 
divine right of conscience, in 1607 a number of reformers fled to Holland, 
where they arrived after terrible privations. They remained in Holland 
about eleven years. In 1620 they left for the New World, and soon after 
their arrival established themselves at Plymouth. Their sufferings for long 



285 

years, from the climate, from starvation, from the ravaj^es of the Indians, 
and from their distant foes, as we read in their sad but eloquent story, make 
the heart bleed. Throughout all, they asserted and maintained that principle 
of religious toleration to preserve which they tied from their i'athorland. 
Population advanced slowly for long years ; few followed their despairino- 
fortunes; but through all "they worshiped God under their own vine and 
under their own fig tree, with none to molest or to make them afraid." It 
would compensate for the trouble if some eloquent writer would go back to 
those days of the past, and contrast the perils and the persecutions endured 
by these early Christians — the loss of fortune and of life — to sustain a prin- 
ciple now madly assailed by those who boast at the same time of beino- the 
offspring of such ancestors, and trample their holiest prerogative under foot 
as if toleration were the teaching of sin itself ! 

In 1631, however, there reached the shores of Nastaket one of those 
men whose character impresses itself upon coming generations, and whose 
virtues outweigh all the honors of merely military chieftains. He -was the 
champion of religious toleration, and almost its martyr. He contended for 
it against all local fanaticisms, offended his own friends by his heroic forti- 
tude, and was finally expelled from the Massachusetts colony for his adhe- 
rence to this immortal doctrine. We allude to Roger Williams. Let those 
who now scoff at the right of conscience, and who dare to lay their hands 
upon that sacred element of freedom — let them contemplate the character 
and the example of this heroic spirit; and if they do not feel overwhelmed 
with the consciousness of their own insignificance and ingratitude, we shall 
be deceived. Behold the picture of this brave and noble leader as drawn 
by the glowing pencil of Bancroft : "In 1631 he was but little more than 
thirty years of age ; but his mind had already matured a doctrine which se- 
cures him an immortality of fame, as its application has given religious 
peace to the American world. He was a Puritan, and a fugitive from Eng- 
lish persecution ; but his wrongs had not clouded jiis accurate understand- 
ing ; in the capacious recesses of his mind he had revolved the nature of 
intolerance, and he, and he alone, had arrived at the great principle which 
is its sole effectual remedy. He announced his discovery under the simple 
proposition of the sanctity of conscience. The civil magistrate should re- 
strain crime, but never control opinion ; should punish guilt, but should never 
violate the freedom of the soul. The doctrine contained within itself 
an entire reformation of theological jurisprudence; it would blot from the 
statute-book the felony of non-conformity ; would quench the fires that per- 
secution had kept so long burning; would repeal every law compellino- at- 
tendance on public worship ; Avould abolish tithes and all forced contributions 
to the maintenance of religion ; would give an equal protection to every 
form of religious faith ; and never suffer the authority of the civil o-overn- 
ment to be enlisted against the mosque of the Mussulman or the altar of the 
fire worshiper, against the Jewish synagogue or Roman cathedral. * * # 

" But the principles of Roger Williams led him into perpetual collision 
with the clergy and government of Massachusetts. It had ever been their 
custom to respect the church of England, and in the mother country they 
frequented its service without scruple ; yet its principles and its adminis- 
tration were harshly exclusive. Williams would hold no communion with 
intolerance ; for, said he, 'the doctrine of persecution for cause of con- 
science is most evidently and lamentably contrary to the doctrine of Christ 
Jesus.' ******** # # # 

" But the controversy finally turned on the question of the rights and duty 
of magistrates to guard the minds of the people against corruption, and to 
punish what would seem to them error and heresy. Magistrates, Williams 
protested, are but the agents of the people, or its trustees, oq whom no spir- 



286 

itual power in matters of worship can ever be conferred; since conscience 
belongs to the individual, and is not the property of the body politic ; and 
with admirable dialectics clothing the great truth in its boldest and most gen- 
eral forms, he asserted that the civil magistrate may not intermeddle even 
to stop a church from apostacy and heresy ; 'that this power extends only 
to tiie bodies and goods and outward estates of men.' With corresponding 
distinctness, he foresaw the influence of his principles on society. 'The 
removal of the yoke of soul-oppression,' to use the words in which, at a 
later day, he confirnied his early view, 'as it will prove an act of mercy and 
righteousness to the enslaved nations, so it is of binding force to engage the 
whole and every interest and conscience to preserve the common liberty 
and peace.' * * ******* # » 

"When summoned to appear before the general court, he avowed his 
convictions in the presence of the representatives of the state, 'mamtained 
the rocky strength of his grounds,' and declared himself 'ready to be bound 
and banished, and even to die in New England,' rather than renounce the 
opinions which had dawned upon his mind in the clearness of light. At a 
time when Germany was the battle-field for all Europe in the implacable 
wars of religion ; when even Holland was bleeding with the anger of 
vengeful factions ; when France was still to go throucrh the fearful struo-trle 
with bigotry ; when England was gasping under the despotism of intoler- 
ance, almost half a century before William Penn became an American pro- 
prietary, and two years before Descartes founded modern philosophy on 
the method of free reflection, Roger Williams asserted the doctrine of in- 
tellectual liberty. It became his glory to found a state on that principle, 
and to stamp himself upon its rising institutions in characters so deep that 
the impress has remained to the present day, and can never be erased with- 
out the total destruction of the work. The principles which he first sus- 
tained amidst the bickerings of a colonial parish, next asserted in the gen- 
eral court of Massachusetts, and then introduced into the wilds on Narra- 
gansett bay, he soon found occasion to publish to the world, and to defend 
as the basis of the religious freedom of mankind ; so that, borrowing the 
rhetoric employed by his antagonist in derision, we may compare him to the 
lark, the pleasant bird of the peaceful summer, that, 'affecting to soar aloft, 
springs upward from the ground, takes his rise from pale to tree,' and at last, 
surmounting the highest hills, utters his clear carols through the skies of 
morning. He was the first person in modern, Christendom to assert in its 
plenitude the doctrine of the liberty of conscience, the equality of opinions 
before law, and in its defence he was the harbinger of Milton, the precursor 
and the superior of Jeremy Taylor." ****** 

[After being expelled from Massachusetts, Roger Williams went out to 
seek a home for himself:] 

" It was in June that the law-giver of Rhode Island, with five compan- 
ions, embarked on the stream ; a frail Indian canoe contained the founder of 
an independent state and its earliest citizens. Tradition has marked the 
spring near which they landed ; it is the parent spot, the first inhabited nook 
of Rhode Island. To express his unbroken confidence in the mercies of 
God, Williams called the place Providence. 'I desired,' said he, 'it might 
be for a shelter for persons distressed for conscience.' " 

These are taken from examples of American history long before the revo- 
lutionary war, and before the declaration of independence. We shall re- 
serve to another occasion the reproduction of the model character of William 
Penn — a portrait entitled to a high place in the galaxy of which Calvert and 
Williams were unfading stars. But what a retrospect is opened to the in- 
quiring mind by these reminiscenses ! We see a simple Bible truth — a plain 
principle in politics — prevailing over bigotted and cruel kings. We see the 



287 

wisest statesmen of a brilliant reign yielding to this principle ; men perish- 
ing for it at the'burnin* stake in order that posterity might feel its value ; 
others stealing off to strange lands with their feeble wives and little chil- 
dren ; others hunted like wild beasts, and finally Christians flying for a 
refuge from intolerance to a far-distant world — a new as3dum — and meet- 
ing there the rigors of a harsh climate, of prostrating diseases, of sav- 
age foes — all that the seed of religious freedom and liberty of conscience 
m'ight not perish, but might be the beginning of a great nation in the future 
under the canopy of whose institutions all nations might find a home, safe 
from king and Kaiser, screened from fanaticism and hatred, and equal 
alike before God and man ! 



One of the first bad deeds of the Know Nothng Governor of Massachusetts, 
after his election in 1855, was the disbanding of several military companies, 
composed of foreign born citizens. 

John Mitchell, the Irish patriot and refugee, published the following ad- 
mirable and scathing article upon the subject in his paper, The Citizen. 

DISARMING OF CITIZENS— THE FIRST STEP TOWARDS DES- 
POTISM. 

He must be a grossly ignorant Celt, indeed, who does not know the principles 
of Republican freedom better than Mr. Gardner, Governor of Massachusetts. 
Mr. Gardner holds "that the foreigner shall enjoy all the blessings of this 
country ; but that the natives shall continue to administer the laws, a-cording 
to their own judgment and the example of their fathers." Therefore Governor 
Gardner has not the least idea what the blessings of this country are (or rather 
were) when he excludes from the number of those blessings the equal capacity 
of all citizens to " administer the laws" and to do every other civic duty and 
exercise every other civic right. When he presumes to cite the example of his 
fathers for this, if he means the Pilgrim Fathers, he is right enough ; — for they 
had little notion of republican freedom or any other freedom — but if he means 
the Fathers of the American Revolution, then he blasphemes his fathers and 
stultifies his fathers' son. His fathers did not call a naturalized citizen " the 
foreigner ;" his fathers did not claim for natives the sole administration of the 
law. His fathers knew what were the blessings of the Revolution they achieved 
and of the country they created ; and the}' made laws inviting all mankind to 
come and participate in those blessings upon equal terms. His fathers little 
thought they would be so unlucky as to beget a Know Nothing. 

However, he has begun the work ', knowing nothing, and we suppose caring 
nothing, how it may end. '' To cultivate a living and energetic nationality — 
to develop a high and vital patriotism," he has commenced his term of ofiice by 
issuing an order to disband all militia companies of the State, whose members 
were horn in other lands — or as he clearly expresses it, '^ Companies composed 
of foreign birth." Whether he has by law the power to carry his ukase into 
effect is another question, which we are glad to see will be tried with him ; but 
in the mean time, so far as in him lies, he revokes the invitation of his fathers 
after it has been accepted by millions of men — after they have abandoned the 
crowded and crushed lands of Europe, their home, their kindred, and what 
citizenship they had there, — and declares his resolution to cheat them, by penal 
disabilities and disqualifications, which would make them citizens, but in name, 
helots in fact. 



288 

This is what Governor Gardner calls Americanizing America. But he lias 
other plans, this learned Governor — " To retain the Eible (that is the Protes- 
tant Bible) in our Common Schools, and to keep entire the separation of the 
Church and the State." Obviously he is in a state of the most innocent uncon- 
sciousness that these two suggestions destroy one another. To expend the taxes 
of the whole people in maintaining institutions (call them schools or conventi- 
cles, or what you will) that only a part of the people can use by reason of some 
one sort of religion being taught there — this is not separation, but connexion, 
of Church and State. We do not mean to make an elaborate criticism on the 
Massachusetts inaugural. It is all like what we have quoted — ignorance, bad 
sense, bad feeling, and bad English. But what we do mean to do is to address 
a few words of advice to naturalized citizens in the premises. 

It may be assumed that Governor Gardner's principles and measures will in 
the present temper of the public mind, be popular, and bo imitated in other 
States. In fact Know Nothing Governors may even attempt to improve upon 
them, and invent some original and more ingenious oppression. It would not be 
easy, just now to go too far in that direction. It is full time that the people against 
whom all these blows and insults are aimed should take counsel together, should 
ascertain whether they are indeed citizens in the true and full meaning of the 
term, if not, then what position they are to consider themselves as holding in 
America henceforth, — and in the mean time what measures can be taken to 
avert the evils which the present proscription may bring upon themselves and 
their adopted country. 

In the first place we must remark the fact which no doubt Governor Gardner 
knows well enough — that the separate military organizations, whether of Irish 
or of German citizens, although certainly an evil, are fully as much owing to 
the separate organizations of native Americans as to any disposition on the part 
of either Irish or Germans to isolate themselves. There are companies in New 
Yurk which do not admit a foreign-born soldier, and doubtless in Boston too. 
These native Americans will not take the word of command from a foreign-born 
officer ; so that if a naturalized citizen, no matter how educated and intelligent, 
were even admitted into those corps he must be a full private. The plain con- 
sequence is that naturalized citizens desirous of bearing arms under the flag of 
their adopted country, if they will not submit to humiliation, must form corps 
of their own. We say this is an evil ; but it is directly produced by the intol- 
erance of the natives; yet the natives think themselves entitled to cry out in 
condemnation of it. 

Since the Citizen was established, seeing that the existence of separate Irish, 
German and Native American companies could not be helped, we have earnestly 
endeavored to impress upon the Irish soldier, what indeed we believe every 
Irish soldier feels without being tutored — that he bears arms solely for his 
adopted country, whose laws he is bound to obey, and whose flag and constitu- 
tion he is to defend with his life. We have loudly condemned the anomaly 
and absurdity of what is called " the Irish vote," (another mischief invented 
and used by American politicians) and exhorted our countrymen not to vote in 
masses or in batches, as Irishmen, nor suffer electioneering intriguers to " make 
capital" of them by a few blarneying phrases. We have preached to them that 
here they are never to forget they are Americans, and exhorted them te be obe- 
dient to the laws, and to rely on the justice of their fellow citizens and on the 
majesty of the constitution. 

We I'epeat that advice still more earnestly noio. Let no irritation at an in- 
solent aggression tempt us to be false to the obligations vve have taken upon us. 
In the difficulties that are approaching, let the Know Nothings be still, as they 
are now, wholly in the wrong. 

But what 13 of more importance still — submit to no brand of inferiority, no 
shadow of disparagement, at the hand of these natives. You are their equals 



289 

by law; you arc their equals every way. Disbanclment of a military company 
is a direct imputation of ynisconduct : and we are happy to find that Col. Butler 
of Lowell refuses to brook the outrage. He declines to transmit tlic order for 
disbandment to his captains, invites a Court Martial, and appeals to the law — 
for there is still an appeal to the law. And the Shields' Artillery of Boston 
have taken like action in the case. If, however, the final decision be against 
them and against Col. Butler, and if the military companies of foreign birth 
are actually disarmed and disbanded, then for every musket given into the 
State Armory, let three be purchased forthwith ; let independent companies be 
formed, thrice as numerous as the disbanded corps — there are no Arms Acts 
here yet — and let every "foreigner" be drilled and trained, and have his arras 
always ready. For you may be very sure, (having some experience in that 
matter) that those who begin by disarming you, mean to do you a mischief. 

Be careful not to truckle in the smallest particular to American prejudices. 
Yield not a single jot of your own ; for you have as good a right to your preju- 
dices as they. Do not, by any means, suffer Gardner's Bible to be thrust down 
your throats. Do not abandon your post, or renounce your functions, as citizens 
or as soldiers, feut after resort to the last and highest tribunal of law open to 
you ; keep the peace ; attempt no <' demonstrations ;" discourage drunkenness, 
and stand to your arms. 

It is hardly to be conceived that the madness of faction and the insolence of 
race will proceed to such a length as to disarm independent companies, or private 
men. If they do, then the Constitution is at an end — the allegiance you have 
sworn to this Kepublic is annulled. 

Would to God that thoughtful and just Americans would bethink themselves 
in time. They are strong : they fur outnumber the foreign born : they 
are proud and flushed witb national glory and prosperity : doubtless they 
can if they will, do great and grievous wrong to a race that has never wronged 
them : — but seriously, earnestly we assure tliem, the naturalized citizens will 
not submit. This senseless feud must be reconciled : there must be peace : 
peace or else a war of extermination. We are here on American ground, either 
as citizens or as enemies. 



HAS EMIGRATION INJURED OUR COUNTRY? 

It is stated — we know not how truly — that the Legislature of Wisconsin has 
unanimously passed resolutions against any alteration of the naturalization laws. 
This item of news has suggested some reflections on the subject of emigration, 
which may not be inapplicable to present polities. ^ 

In 1840 the entire population of Wisconsin was 30,945. 

In 1850 the entire population of Wisconsin was 305,391 — being an increase 
in ten years of 88G.88 per cent. ! 

Of this 305,391 souls, 110,477 were born in foreign countries, and but 54,479 
•within the State of Wisconsin. 

There arc many other evidences of the value of emigration which deserve 
notice. 

Chicago, that wonder of the lakes, which twelve years ago was no larger than 
an ordinary village, and which is now one of the great depots of the far West, 
had a population of 30,000 two years ago. Of this number about one half is 
composed of citizens born in other countries. 

Take next the city of Milwaukie, Wisconsin, which has only risen into notice 
within a few years, and we find there a population of 20,000 three years ago, of 
which 12,782 are adopted citizens from Germany and Ireland. 
19 



290 

Cincinnati, the queen city of the "West, has a population of 115,435, of which 
54,500 are adopted citizens from Germany and Ireland. 

St. Louis is another wonder. In 1852 it had a population of about 78,000, 
of -which 38,397 were born in foreign countries — chiefly from England, Wales, 
Ireland and Germany. 

New Orleans has a population of 50,470 native-born to 48,601 foreign-born — 
mainly from Ireland, France and Germany. 

Detroit numbers 11,055 native to 9,927 foreign-born. 

Boston has 88,948 native to 46,667 foreign-born. 

Philadelphia has 286,346 native to 121,699 foreign-born. 

It appears, says the Compendium of the Census, compiled by Mr. DeBow, 
that there were, in 1850, in the United States, 961,719 persons born in Ire- 
land; 278,675 born in England; 70,550 in Scotland; 29,868 in Wales— ma- 
king a total for Great Britain and Ireland of 1,340,812, which is considerably 
more than one half of the total foreign-born residents in the United States. If Bri- 
tish America be added, (147,711,) there will be a total of 1,488,523, which 
makes two thirds of the total foreign-born. From France there are 54,069 ; from 
Prussia, 10,549; from the rest of Germany, 573,225; and some 80,000 from 
other countries, including Mexico. 

Closely and inseparably connected with this view of the subject, are the enor- 
mous and increasing resources opened by this emigration to our commerce, ma- 
nufactures, agriculture, and hence to the revenues of the general government. 
The amount of shipping employed is itself an item worthy of reflection. New 
York, which is the point at which most of the emigration from the Old World 
arrives, thence to take its departure over the States of the Union, had in 1821 
a tonnage equal to 21,726,634, and in thirty years after (1851) its tonnage was 
equal to 106,568,635 ! This ratio holds good as to other cities. We have no 
data by which to estimate the large amount of coin that follows and accompa- 
nies emigration to the United States; and this is an element of first-rate im- 
portance. Arrest emigration and the first interest to feel the blow will be that 
of commerce. 

What emigration has done for agriculture, the statistics of the Western States 
will show to the curious inquirer. Every foot of uncultivated soil that is res- 
cued for the purposes of civilization by the teeming thousands that pour into 
the wilderness of the far West is made to add to the enormous products that 
have made this the granary of the world, and to every other interest in every 
State of the Union, because where these masses of citizens do not produce they 
consume, giving to manufacturers a market on the one hand, and aiding to feed 
starving millions upon the other. 

There is probably no element that enters so largely, and at the same time so 
convincingly, into the discussion of the question of the value of emigration to 
the United States, as that which relates to the public lands. Here is a subject 
"worthy of the noblest efforts of the intellect. Ilegarded from every point of 
view, it inspires the most profound ideas, and fills the mind of the citizen with 
sublime anticipations of his country's greatness. Indissolubly connected with 
the question of revenue, it suggests to us a bulwark against a world in arms. 
In peace it promises to support a government without taxation, and so enforces 
the great idea of free trade with the nations of the earth. In war it furnishes 
us with the means to protect ourselves against the invader. Every j'ear fills up 
new expanses of the public domain ; and yet, as State after State is recovered 
from the gloom and the desolation of centuries of ignorance and of neglect, 
other regions are opened to the energies of our race, startling all the peoples of 
the globe with stories of illimitable natural resources. The policy of the go- 
vernment has not fallen below the majestic dignity of this subject, in all its re- 
lations, social and political. Chiefly, however, has it been considered as belong- 
ing to that class of interests which look beyond the present, and connect them- 



291 

selves with the future. The following brief and striking paragraph in the Pre- 
sident's last annual message contains a volume of food for patriotic thought : 

" During the last fiscal year, eleven million seventy thousand nine hundred 
and thirty-tive acres of the public lands have been surveyed, and eight millioa 
one hundred and ninety thousand and seventeen acres brought into market. 
The number of acres sold is seven million thirty-five thousand seven hundred 
and thirty-five, and the amount received therefor nine million two hundred and 
eighty-five thousand five hundred and thirty-three dollars. The aggregate 
amount of lands sold, located under military scrip and land warrants, selected 
as swamp lands by states, and by locating uucjer grants for roads, is upwards of 
twenty-three millions of acres. The increase. of lands sold over the previous 
year is about six millions of acres ; and the sales during the two first quarters 
of the current year present the extraordinary result of five and a half millions 
sold, exceeding by nearly four millions of acres the sales of the corresponding 
quarters of the last year." 

It is not necessary that we should retrace the history of emigration for the 
last twenty years, and especially for the last ten years, to show how and by 
whom these lands are purchased. While the government liberalizes its laws, 
cheapens its public lands, and peacefully treats with the aborigines, the doctrines 
of our forefathers are equally respected and applied, and the oppressed and 
down-trodden of the Old World come hitherwards to help tlic cause of enlight- 
ened liberty on these shores, and to find homes for themselves, loith none to mo- 
lest or to make them afraid. We thus fulfil ennobling duties to ourselves and 
bold out ennobling inducements to all our fellow-beings. We reduce our pub- 
lic debt, lighten the burdens of taxation to our citiz(ins, open the pathway to 
religion and civilization, where for thousands of years untutored nature reigned 
supreme, and reward those who have fought our battles against the common foe. 
Who does not see how such a picture held up before the hunted and the starv- 
ing masses of ancient kingdoms is like a voice from God himself calling them 
hitherwards? It is He who speaks in these wonderful and manifold evidences 
of His goodness and His glory. And when the emigrants come, answering to 
us, as the agents of the Supreme Ruler, do they take from us without giving in 
return ? Do they not aid to make the wilderness blossom as the rose — to dig 
the canal — to heave the ponderous granite from its time-worn caves — to stretch 
the long line of railroad — to pay taxes — and to contend against our enemies at 
home and abroad ? But more than this : Leaving the material advantages thus 
given on the one hand, and returned a thousand-fold upon the other, to those 
who delight in such calculations, who will estimate the general advantage to 
those rational principles of freedom, and of civilization and of law, secured to 
us by these additions to our population ? Exceptions, indeed, there are to this 
rule — deplorable exceptions. And so were there exceptions after the revolu- 
tionary war among a native-born people, who rebelled in the face of sacred ob- 
ligations, and resisted the delegated authority with the strong arm. But the 
problem has been too fully and too clearly solved in regard to emigrants to this 
country. Here all nations mingle and make up a race such as the sun has ne- 
ver shone upon, and the feature that towers most prominently in all the States — 
that arrests and converts, if it does not denounce and overwhelm, every element 
of foreign tumult transported here — is the feature that when men would be 
truly free they must be obedient to the laws they themselves have made, or 
sworn to respect. And this is the rock upon which for fifty years a popular 
government has stood, anfl upon which it now stands stronger than ever. This, 
too, is the rock upon which absurd prophesies and craven fears have been shi» 
vered to atoms. 

The narrow bigot, or the selfish demagogue, may choose to extract apprehen- 
sions from these observations, but we advise him to adjourn his criticisms. We 



292 

advise him to leave as a legacy to the future his present persecutions and plots ; 
and there can be little danger of the issue ; for if he loill try his theories now, 
he must rest on a more enduring basis than mere proscription and envy. He 
must erect his standard higher than the secret cells of midnight schemers. He 
must raise his voice in a purer atmosphere than that which exhales from oath- 
bound orgies. He may riot for a day in the excitement resulting from intoxi- 
cating prejudices and glittering promises. But he must oppose arguments to 
facts, truth to history, great thoughts and practical benefits to the solid and in- 
spiring record that we hold up before his eyes. Who cannot realize such a 
prospect in the not too distant future, when the Pacific slope will swarm with 
human beinc's ; when the untrodden empires that now belong to our country 
will be peopled with freemen ; when "we have rescued the suffering nations of 
this hemisphere, by the force of a peaceful example, from the sword and the 
bayonet; when our lakes, on all their borders, will fulfil the destiny that awaits 
them and renew there the glories of the ancient republics; when in all the 
world there is no tyrant; and when there need be no emigrants to this land, 
because toleration, equality, and peace will be the common blessings of the 
whole family of man ? 



HOSTILITY TO EMIGRATION. 

Thefollowino- powerful articles appeared in the Washinglon Union during the 
canvass in Virginia, and as they have been ascribed to two of the most distin- 
guished statesmen of the Democratic party, we republish them. In learning 
and research, they equal any writings of the canvass. 

Hostility/ to Emigration — To the Extension of the American Union — To the 

Rights of the States and the Eights of the Citizen — And, Finally, to the 

Constitution of the United States — Now, as heretofore, Integral Portions of 
Federal Creed. 

Now that a party has arisen in our midst, boldly avowing the worst doctrines 
of the old alien law, and striking down its victims by an illegal secret process, 
it will serve a good purpose to trace its relationship to the federal sources from 
which it springs. We cannot better illustrate and establish the parentage of 
this party than by again taking up the subject upon which we yesterday ad- 
dre-sed some observations to the readers of the Washington Union. This party 
is federal in its origin, in its instincts, and its designs; but in nothing can this 
be more clearly shown than in its relations to the future disposition of the pub- 
lic lands, in its hostility to emigration, in its abolition proclivities, an^ in its 
opposition to the erection of new States. General Hayne, of South Carolina, 
in his great speech in reply to Mr. Webster in 1830, eloquently pointed where 
the federal party and where the Democratic party respectively stand on the 
question of the public lands. What was true of both in 1830, is faithfully 
correct in regard to them in 1855. We copy from that speech as follows : 

'< When the gentleman refers to the conditions of the grants under which the 
United States have acquired these lands, and insists that, as they are declared 
to be ' for the common benefit of all the States,' they can only be treated as so 
much treasure, I think he has applied a rule of construction too narrow for the 
case. If, in the deeds of cession, it has been declared that the grants were in- 
tended ' for the common benefit of all the States,' it is clear from other provi- 
sions that they were not intended as so much property ; for it is expressly de- 



293 

clared tbat the object of the grants is to erect new States ; and the United 
States in accepting the truyt, bind themselves to facilitate tnc formation of those 
States, to be admitted into the Union with all the lights and privileges of the 
original States. This, sir, was the great end to which all parties looked, and it 
is by the fulfilment of this high trust that the common benefit of all the States 
is to be best promoted. Sir, let me tell the gentleman that in the part of the 
country in which I live vrc do not measure political benefits by the money 
standard. We consider, as more valuable than gold, liberty, principle and 
justice." 

This is the Democratic idea. Observe, next, how clearly the old federal idea, 
often tried, and fatally failing on each successive trial, is given by the same 
masterly hand : 

" The lands are, it seems, to be treated as so much treasure, and must be 
applied to the common benefit of all the States. Now, if this be so, where does 
he derive the right to appropriate them for local and partial objects ? How 
can the gentleman consent to vote away immense bodies of the public lauds for 
canals in Indiana and Illinois ; to the Louisville and Portland canal ; to Ken- 
yon College in Ohio; to schools for deaf and dumb, and other objects of a 
similar description ? * * * * Sir, the true difierence between us 
I take to be this : the gentleman wishes to treat the public lands as a great 
treasure — ^just as so much money in the treasury — to be applied to all objects, 
constitutional and unconstitutional, to which the public money is now constantly 
applied. I consider it as a sacred trust, which we ought to fulfil on the princi- 
ples for which I have contended." 

What followed all these eflForts to convert the proceeds of the sales of the 
public lands into a common fund for the purpose of bribing local interests and 
propitiating the electoral votes of certain States for presidential favorites ? We 
had a long procession of expedients to tax the products of labor; a high and 
exorbitant tariS"; a system of internal improvements; and a settled effort, on 
the part of the federal leaders, to build up a gigantic " national bank," to op- 
press labor, and to aid the few at the expense of the many. In the meanwhile, 
the Democratic party, led in that day by such men as Benton, Forsyth, Grundy, 
and Wright, labored with herculean energy to preserve this fund from the pub- 
lic lands for two great objects: 1st, that by the encouragement of actual settlers 
new States might be added tp our Union ; and, 2dly, that our public debt might 
be extinguished. What American citizen does not, at this day, regard our pub- 
lic lands, and the manner in which, under Democratic auspices, they have been 
disposed of, with pride ? The able Commissioner of the General Land Office, 
John Wilson, in his last annual report, speaks of the blessings which the pre- 
sent system has conferred upon our country as follows : 

"The true policy' of the land system is, first, to encourage the actual settle- 
ment and improvement of the public domain. This may be done by such 
amendments to the preemption laws as experience may prove necessary for the 
purpose, and by which every actual settler may secure his improvements in a 
reasonable time, without risk of competition from speculators. 

" And, second, to aid in providing the necessary facilities for intercommuni- 
cations, and for the transportation of the products of the lands to market. 
Although the railroad excitement, in many cases, has been carried to excess, 
experience has proved that grants for such purposes, when carried out in good 
faith, are alike beneficial to the people, the States, and the general govern- 
ment. 

" To prevent mere speculation, and to secure an equivalent to the government 
for the lands granted for those purposes, some modifications in the acts making 
tbem seem proper — as, for instance, that no grant should be made except on the 



^94 

application of the legislature of a State ; that the lands should be taken in al- 
ternate sections within a certain distance on each side of the improvement, the 
minimum price of the remaining sections to be doubled throughout the whole 
extent of the grant; and the lauds to be certified to the States as the work 
progresses, with a provision of forfeiture in case of failure. 

*' It is impossible to portray the vast benefits already derived by the West 
from this system. Immense regions have been disposed of that were thought 
to be wholly unsalable because of the difficulty of access; and so numerous are 
the applications for these lands, that in some cases, for want of time, they can- 
not be acted on for months after they are made." 

At this point we come to the efforts now making by the new secret party to 
arrest emigration from the Old World, by which the wilderness is redeemed to 
civilization, industry encouraged, the public revenues increased, and the way 
gradually but surely prepared for the abolition of all indirect taxes in the shape 
of tariffs upon our people. Defeated befoi-e, and with results that we can never 
too highly appreciate, the federal,, leaders are now trying to arrest emigration, 
so that this noble policy may be destroyed. Mr. Benton charged these leaders, 
twenty-five years ago, with being guilty of the same monstrous offence de- 
nounced against the King of England, by the signers of the Declaration of 
Independence, in the following words : 

"He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States, for that pur- 
pose obstructing the laws for the naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass 
others to encourage their migration hither, andraising the conditions of new 
appropriations of lands." 

His Majesty, the King of England, professed, like the federal leaders of old, 
and the present secret party under the control of federal and abolition leaders, 
to be affectionately devoted to this country. He, too, wanted *' Americans to 
rule America," (meaning himself and his mercenaries.) The federalists de- 
sired to limit the boundaries of the Utiion, and the new party toils to effect the 
same object, even while the whole world acknowledges the wisdom of our policy 
in regard to the oppressed of other nations, in stopping all emigration to the 
United States. 

Strange, too, that from the very Massachusetts which now sends the rankest 
enemies of the Union to the Congress of the United States, and the most re- 
lentless foes of the adopted citizen, the first voices were raised against the ex- 
pansion of our beloved Union. John Quincy Adams admitted this in October 
of 1813, while American minister at the Russian court. Speaking of the 
growth of western States, and admiring at that distance the sublime spectacle, 
he exclaims : [How true is this voice of the past in its application to the Mas- 
sachusetts of 1855 !] 

''If New Enghmd" (says Mr. Adams) "loses her influence in the councils 
of the Union, it will not be owing to any diminution of her population, owing 
to these emigrations to the West. It will be from the partial, sectarian, or, as 
Hamilton called it, clannish spirit, which malces so maiiy of her political lead- 
ers jealous and envious of the South. This spirit is in its nature narrow and 
contracted, and it always works by means like itself. Its natural tendency is 
to excite and provoke a counteracting spirit of the same character; and it has 
actually produced that effect in our country. It has combined the southern 
and western portions of the United States, not in a league, but in a concert of 
political views adverse to those of New England. The fame of all the great 
legislators of antiquity is founded upon their contrivances to strengthen and 
multiply the principles of attraction in civil society. Our legislators seem to 
delight in multiplying and fomenting the principles of repulsion." 



295 

The doctrines of Massachusetts abolitionism Lave, we regret to say, since 
made rapid progress in those free western States whose progress they so long 
and so violently resisted. Their avowed hostility to emigration, however, after 
a long silence on that favorite federal dogma, must show to the "West that the 
" sniike is only scotched, not killed/' and that opposition to the rights of the 
South is now, as ever, closely identified with animosity to the growth of the 
West. 

The same leaders were anxious in 1786, 1787, and 1788 to surrender the 
navigation of the Mississippi to Spain. 

The same federal leaders, in the first ordinance for. the sale of the public lands, 
refused to sell a less quantity than six hundred acres, and also refused to reduce 
the price for actual settlers. 

The course of such men as Josiah Quincy, of Boston, and thosewho believed 
in his doctrines, and followed his example in opposing the acquisition of Loui- 
siana, is an event familiar to the youngest readers of political history. The 
element that controlled them then was hostility to the admission of a flourish- 
ing people and a noble region into the Union ; and they contended with memora- 
ble bitterness against that memorable acquisition. In the midst of the excite- 
ment on this question, however, Thomas Jefferson was chosen President. To 
obtain Louisiana was a matter of the greatest importance, commercially and po- 
litically. "The West," says Mr. Benton, "was filling up with people, and 
covered over with wealth and population. It was no more the feeble settle- 
ment which the Congress of the Confederation had seen, and whose rights, few 
as they were to the free navigation of the Mississippi, had given birth to the 
most arduous struggle ever seen in Congress. States had superseded these in- 
fant settlements. Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee had been admitted into the 
Union ; the Territories of Indiana, Illinois, and Mississippi were making their 
way to the same station. The western settlements of Pennsylvania and Vir- 
ginia lined the left bank of the Ohio for half the length of its course. All 
was animated with life, gay with hope, independent in the cultivation of a grate- 
ful soil, and rich in the prospect of sending their accumulated products to all 
the markets of the world, through the great channel that conducted the King of 
Rivers to the bosom of the ocean. The treaty with Spain had guaranteed this 
ri-ght of passage." 

In 1802 this right was violated and New Orleans was suddenly closed against 
the States and Territories alluded to above, thus producing dismay, disaster, 
and bankruptcy. Mr. Jefferson took bold and rapid measures to acquire Loui- 
siana. He sent Livingston and Monroe to France to negotiate the purchase ; 
and in the Senate of the United States, on the confirmation of these two distin- 
guished gentlemen, every federal vote from the free States, including nearly all 
from New England, was cast against them ! The result is known, and Loui- 
siana was acquired ; but not without a fierce and relentless opposition from the 
federal leaders in Congress. Massachusetts was the first State to raise its voice 
against the admission of Louisiana as a State of this Union. We copy the 
following resolutions, reported to the Massachusetts legislature by Josiah Quin- 
cy, Ashmun, and Fuller, on the part of the Senate, and Messrs. Thatcher, 
Hall, and Bates, on the part of the House, recorded in the Boston Sentinel, 
June 26, 1813 : 

"Resolved, (as the sense of this legislature,) That the admission into the 
Union of States created in countries not comprehended within the original limits 
of the United States is not authorized by the letter or the spirit of the federal 
constitution. 

" Resolved, That it is the interest and the duty of the people of Massachu- 
setts to oppose the admission of such States into the Union as a measure tend- 
ing to the dissolution of the Union. 



296 

"Resolved, That the act pissed the 8th day of April, 1812, entitled 'An 
act for the admission of Louisiana into the Union, and to extend the laws of 
the United States to the said State,' is a violation of the constitution of the 
United States ; and that the senators of this State in Congress be instructed, 
and the representatives be requested, to use the utmost of their endeavors to 
obtain a repeal of the same." 

Without going out of the way to show the advantages to the whole North, of 
the measures which gave us control of the Mississippi, and of the treaty that 
gave* us Louisiana, and without pointing to the cultivated and liberal States 
tbat now occupy the domain thus recovered from a monarchy, the reader 
of the present day cannot fail to see the analogy between this act of the Boston 
federalists and their present crusade upoff Kansas and Nebraska. 

But, as if to show how this ancient hostility to emigration, to the acquisition 
of territory, to the erection of new States, and to the spread of liberal princi- 
ples over the continent, sympathizes with the present organized secret warfare 
upon the adopted citizens, and the hostility to new States, let us present 
another evidence. , 

The same Massachusetts, by a vote of 260 to 90, in the house of represen- 
tatives, sent delegates to the Hartford Convention on the 15th of December, 
1814 ; and the next day, while Jackson was preparing for the battle of New 
Orleans, with the adopted citizen and the native American by his side, that 
convention 

" Resolved, That the most inviolable secrecy shall be observed by each mem- 
ber of this convention, including the secretary, as to all propositions, debates, 
and proceedings thereof, until this injunction shall be suspended or altered." 

A few days afterwards, on the 24th of December, it was resolved : 

" That it is expedient to make provision for restrainiag Congress in the exer- 
cise of an unlimited power to make new States and admit them into the 
Union." 

And on the 29th of DecemlDer, of the same year, the same convention pro- 
prosed : 

" That the capacity of naturalized citizens to hold offices of trust, honor, or 
profit, ought to be restrained." 

Other movements, and more sectional and treasonable, were advocated, and 
adopted. But we rest here. 

It needs only to complete this convincing record that we should show that" 
the same federalists have continued their war upon emigration, upon the expan- 
sion of our country, upon the adopted citizens, and upon the Union of these 
States, down to this moment of time. They opposed the annexation of Texas 
and the accjuisition of California, and are as ready to denounce the peaceful pur- 
chase of Cuba as they were to resist the great triumph that gave us Louisiana. 
They are organized all over the North to set the laws of Congress at defiance, 
and rejoice at the success of their fusion with the Know Nothings because it 
enables them to throw the-ir abolition and disunion disciples into Congress. 
They are, therefore, united in a persistent war upon the established rights of 
the South, and in opposing the admission of any more slave States into the 
Union, even at the risk of a dissolution of the confederacy. Identified with 
the hostility to the Irish in New York, when the latter would not join in the 
crusade against Jackson for his war upon the bank ; refusing to make good the 
destruction of a Catholic convent destroyed by a Boston mob ; the aiders and 
the abettors of the nativist movements of 1841 and 1844-45 ; they are once 
more in the lead of a secret society, which, like their own Hartford Convention, 



297 

plots treason against the constitution and the rights of the citizen in the dark, 
and publicly elevates bold and reckless factionists and demagogues to command- 
ing positions in the national legislature, whence they may scatter fire and death 
over the South, and hurl anathemas against the rights of conscience. 

We have deemed this glance at the history of the past, as contrasted with 
existing parties and schemes, eminently due to the cause of truth. We com- 
mend it to the consideration of the Democratic party of the whole Union. We 
ask those who have been misled, by the cry of a '' new party,'' into the Know 
Nothing lodges, to observe how completely they have fallen into the hands of 
the adv'ocates of those very doctrines against which Jefferson protested, and 
over which the Democratic party has been gloriously and ultimately victorious 
ever since the constitution of the United States was accepted as the fundamental 
law of the American republic. 



ONE OF THE VICTORIES OF THE NEW PARTY. 

While the Mexican war was at its height, a gentleman at the head of one of 
the departments under President Polk resigned his commission in the civil ser- 
vice of the country, and was appointed a brigadier general in the American 
army. He was an Irishman born. He had made a most favorable impression 
while discharging his official duties in Washington. _ He was_ among the very 
few of our adopted citizens who held prominent position in this country. The 
State which had presented him to the President as eminently worthy of his 
confidence, had herself showQ her appreciation of his high ability and unexcep- 
tionable deportment ; and the result proved that her estimate of tfie man was 
just. After having served with Generals Taylor and Wool on the other line, he 
landed with the American army at Vera Cruz under command of Gen. Scott, 
and wiis warmly eulogized for his gallantry at the capture of that city and the 
castle of San Juan de Ulloa, in March of 1847. When Gen. Scott issued his 
brilliant order (No. Ill) of the 17th of April, in which, with almost prophetic 
inspiration, he sketched the very details of the great victory that awaited him 
at Cerro Gordo, he selected this brave Irishman as one of the leaders in that 
eventful struggle. He said : 

" The second (Twigg's) division of regulars is already advanced within easy 
turning distance towards the enemy's left. That division has instructions to 
move forward before daylight to-morrow, and take up position across the national 
road in the enemy's rear, so as to cut off a retreat towards Jalapa. It may be 
reinforced to-day, if unexpectly attacked in force, by regiments — one or two — 
taken from Shields' brigade of volunteers. If not, the two volunteer regiments 
will march for that purpose at dayliglit to-morrow morning, under Brigadier 
General Shields, who will report to Brigadier General Twiggs, on getting up 
with him, or to the general-in-chief if he be in advance." 

This order was executed to the letter. The party under Twiggs and Shields 
were the advance party ; but while leading his troops to the conflict, under the 
heavy fire of the enemy, General Shields fell, as it was supposed, mortally 
wounded. 

"Brigadier General Shields, (says General Scott, in his report of the day's 
operations,) a commander of activity, zeal, and talent, is, I fear, mortally 
wounded. 

And again, the commander says, in another report : 

" The brigade so gallantly led by General Shields, and, after his fall, by Col- 
onel Baker, deserves high commendation for its fine behavior and success." 



298 

General Twiggs said : " Of the conduct of the volunteer force under the 
brave Grencral Shields, I cannot speak in two high terms." 

General Patterson united in these strong commendations of the courageous 
general. And the whole country soon responded to the sympathy and solici- 
tude which his dreadful wounds and his noble bearing had secured for him in 
the American army. 

The Illinois general slowly recovered, however. His escape from death was 
miraculous, and we shall never forget how the intelligence of his restoration to 
health thrilled the American people. 

The next great battles were those of Contreras and Churubusco. Here we 
find the gallant Shields once more ready for action, though still weak and suf- 
fering from his wounds. It is remarkable that, after having been carried in an 
ambulance from Jalapa to Puebla, bleeding and suffering from his wounds, he 
insisted upon going into the fight, and did so, when so weak and wasted that 
his physicians declared it impossible for him to survive ? Again General Scott 
paid him the highest compliments for his skill and daring in fulfilling his or- 
ders. This was on the 19th of August, 1847. 

On the 28th of the same month. General Scott once more reports to the Se- 
cretary of War — and this time he writes " from the gates of Mexico." What 
does he say of Shields ? We copy from his despatch : 

" Shields, the senior officer of the hamlet, after Smith had arranged with 
Cadwalader and Riley the plan of attack for the morning, delicately waived in- 
terference ; but reserved to himself the double task of holding the hamlet with 
his two regiments, (South Carolina and New York,) against ten times his num- 
bers on the side of the city, including the slopes to his left, and, in case the 
camp in his rear should be carried, to face about and cut off the flying enemy." 

And again, speaking of the grand finale of that day, Gen. Scott saya : 

" Shields, too, by the wise disposition of his brigade, and his gallant activity, 
contributed much to the general results. He held masses of cavalry and in- 
fantry, supported by artillery, in check below him, and captured hundreds, 
with one general, (Mendoza,) of those who fled from above." 

Referring to the fifth victory of that glorious day, Gen. Scott says : 

" It has been stated that some two hours and a half before Pierce's brigade, 
followed closely after the volunteer brigade, both under the command of Brig- 
adier General Shields, had been detached to our left to turn the enemy's works, 
to prevent the escape of the garrisons, and to oppose the extension of the enemy's 
numerous corps from the rear, upon and around our left. 

" In a winding march around to the right this temporary division found itself 
on the edge of an open, wet meadow, and in the presence of some 4,000 of 
the enemy's infantry, a little in the rear of Churubusco, on that road. Estab- 
lishing the right at a strong building, Shields extended his left parallel to the 
road to outflank the enemy towards the capital. But the enemy extending his 
right, supported by three thousand cavalry, more rapidly (being favored by 
better ground) in the same direction. Shields concentrated the division about a 
hamlet, and determined to attack in front. The battle was long, hot, and va- 
ried, but ultimately success crowned the zeal and gallantry of our troops, led by 
their distinguished commander, Brigadier General Shields. Shields took 300 
prisoners, including officers." 

General Worth spoke highly of the gallant bearing of Pillow, Shields, Cad- 
walader, and Pierce in this fierce engagement. His praises were re-echoed by 
Generals Twiggs and Smith. General Shields, in his own report, which is a 
model of its kind, presents a graphic and beautiful sketch of the battle. 



299 

But wc find General Shields in the last, as in the first, conflict. In the ter- 
rible attack upon the city of Mexico he was in the advance with the veteran 
Quitman and the accomplished Persifer F. Smith. General Scott refers to him 
warmly, and says, in one part of his report of the battle, " General Quitman, 
being in hot pursuit — gallant himself, and ably supported by Generals Shields 
and Smith — Shields badly wounded before Chepultepec and refusing to retire," 
&c. 

General Quitman writes : '' In directing the advance. Brigadier General 
Shields was badly wounded in the arm. No persuasions, however, could induce 
that officer to leave his command and quit the field." And again : " Until 
carried from the field on the night of the 13th, in consequence of the severe 
wound received in the morning, he was conspicious for bis gallantry, energy, 
and skill." 



SPEECH OP MR. RUFFIN. 

The speecb of Mr. Thomas Ruffin of North Carolina was used with great ef- 
fect in the Virginia canvass, and doubtless in every Southern State, in the con- 
flicts of the Democracy with Know Nothingism. Its distinguished ability 
eminently entitles it to a place in this compilation : 

Speech of Hon. Thos. Ruffin, of North Carolina, Delivered in the House of 
Re^iresentativeSj February 27, 1855. 

[The House being in Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union.] 

Mr. RuflSn. Mr. Chairman, I rise in my place for the first time since I have 
had a seat upon this floor, with the view of submitting a few remarks." I do 
not propose to discuss the question immediately before the Committee, and shall 
avail myself of the privilege now accorded me, to consider another question. 
Since I have been a member of this House, it has acted upon many important 
questions. Being loth to trespass upon the time of the House, I have contented 
myself by giving a silent vote upon all of them. These were questions which 
had heretofore entered, more or less, into the political discussions of our coun- 
try, and upon them my opinions were not unknown to my constituents. Since 
the commencement of the present session of Congress we have heard discussions 
in this Hall upon questions which were thought to have been settled long ago. 
I allude more particularly to those great questions of religious toleration and 
naturalization. 

I had thought that the question of religious toleration was settled by the 
Constitution of the country, and that American citizens had always proudly 
boasted that here, every man had the right to worship Almighty God according 
to the dictates of his own conscience, and that this right was not only guaran- 
teed by the fundamental law of the land, but was regarded as inherent and ina- 
lienable. 

And, Mr. Chairman, I had thought that the naturalization laws, passed under 
the administration of Jefferson, amended and perfected by sub.'jequent legislation, 
had given general satisfaction to the country, with the exception of a small 
faction. Throughout the country, discussion on these questions has been re- 
vived of late. 

To keep pace with the spirit of the times, early in the present session hono- 
rable gentlemen were struggling to get the floor to bring them before the House 
for its consideration. 



300 • 

The honorable gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Taylor), more fortunate than 
bis competitors, succeded in his efforts, and, having obtained the floor, introduced 
a bill proposing an alteration of the naturalization laws. 

Sir, that gentleman is responsible for the introduction of the subject here, or 
if he prefers it, he is entitled to the distinguished honor of having been the 
first to introduce this measure into the House at the present session of Congress. 

And again. Sir, not long since a series of resolutions embodying certain prin- 
ciples in relation to these questions was offered by the honorable gentleman from 
Pennsylvania, (Mr. Witte). I was called upon to vote for the suspension of the 
rules to enable the House to consider those resolutions, and it is not out of place 
here that I should give the reasons which influenced me in giving the vote 
which I gave on that occasion. These are generally known as the anti-Know 
Nothing resolutions. 
^ Tcau conceive of no evil, either real or imaginary, existing or supposed to 
/ exist in this country, which will justify American freemen in the formation of 
secret oath-bound political societies. They may do for the despotism of Russia; 
they may do for Austria ; but there can certainly be no necessity for such in 
our land. 

No, sir, in our country where every man has the right to speak, print, and 
publish whatever he may see fit, only being liable for the abuse of that privi- 
lege, and where, to use the language of an old revolutionary writer, "The 
press glows with freedom's sacred zeal," — here, sir, there can be no necessity for 
resorting to institutions of this kind with a view of controlling the legislation 
of the country. Those who framed our government wisely provided the means 
of altering such laws as needed amendment. They are open to repeal, or altera- 
tion ; but, sir, this can be done through the ballot-box in the sunlight of broad 
day. Our institutions depend for their success on the virtue, intelligence, and 
patriotism of the people ; and when the time comes in which they will desert 
the usual mode, do away with the open action of day and resort to these secret 
cabals to influence the legislation of the country, then, in my opinion, the days 
of the republic are numbered. He has read history with but little profit, who 
has not observed that in every country where the people have lost their liberties 
they have brought such misfortune upon themselves. When they have become 
demoralized and ready for a change, then the turmoil of the times has given 
birth to some adventurer who boldly usurps their liberties, assumes the man- 
agement of their affairs, and concentrates all political power in himself. Learn- 
ing lessons of wisdom from the records of the past, let us strive to escape the . 
\^alamities that have befallen other republican governments. 

"What master spirit devised this organization ? I do not know that this is a 
question of any great importance. I do not think that the author is entitled to 
any great credit for originality, I do not undertake to say whether it is taken from 
the forms and ceremonies adopted by Catiline and his co-conspiritors at Rome, 
or whether it is like unto the societies formed in certain districts of England to 
protect labor against capital, or whether, as seems most probable, it has for its 
prototype the order of religious Jesuits, as depicted in the " Wandering Jew," 
and that the federal treasury is the Renepont inheritance, which it is using its 
appliances and secret machinery to get possession of. 

I was forcibly struck with the similarity between the two orders, the religious 
Jesuits and the Know Nothings, in the speech of the honorable gentleman from 
Alabama (Mr. Smith), and I am sorry that he is not present this evening. 
From his graphic description in his defence of the Know Nothing order, we see 
that it makes use of the same appliances to accomplish its objects as the reli- 
gious Jesuits which order he set out to denounce. In one portion of his speech, 
he says, that the Know Nothings are formed for the purpose of making war 
against the religious Jesuits. Both seemed to be the same in organization. 
Each is after power and spoils. Each is enshrouded in the garb of mystery. 



301 

One hides its iniquities under tbe cloak of religion ; the other under a most 
exalted devotion to country. Each teaches the practice of falsehood, craft, and 
deceit. Each binds its members by a mighty oath, the violation of which they 
assume to punish. The one claims devout piety, the other intense patriotism. 

The gentleman from Alabama says, that " when you fight the devil you have 
the right to fight him with fire." That seems to be in fact an acknowledgment 
on his part that the new order was taken from the other one. But will this 
principle hold good ? Fight the devil with fire — perpetrate an evil to obviate 
the consequences of another one — commit one fraud to nullify another ? The 
gentleman is a distinguished lawyer and I would ask him whether he would con- 
sider it right to meet a forged bond with a forged release ? The principle 
is the same. That was said to have been a practice at one time quite common 
among the British lawyers in the East Indies. It has never been introduced 
into this country and I trust that it never will be. It is unsound in morals. It 
is a sentiment unfit to be proclaimed in the presence of the representatives of the 
people here in this Hall. 

He also says in the course of his speech that these religious Jesuits were or- 
ganized by thwarted military aspirants after the reformation. I would ask 
whether this order of political Jesuits, of which the gentleman is champion upon 
this floor, was not organized after the great pol'.tical revolution which swept fed- 
eralism out of power in 1852. Until this power was ground down, until Democ- 
racy was in the ascendancy, we never heard of any such order as this. 

But to go on with the simile. The Gentleman says, that these religious Jesuits 
were taught to ingratiate themselves into the confidence of men of power and 
influence, or, to use his own language, '' to cultivate their friendship, probe 
their designs, and communicate their secrets." How stands the order that he 
defends? Is it not well known to Gentlemen on this floor who were candi- 
dates in the late elections for Congress, that these Know Nothings formed this 
plan ; pretended to be their friends, went into convention pretending to be 
Democrats, assisted in making the nominations, drew their secrets and all their 
plans from them, obtained all the information they could from them, and after 
night-fall skulked into the Know Nothing lodges and communicated those se- 
crets ! This is a notorious fact and cannot be denied. I say, that it is beneath 
the dignity of American gentlemen and honorable men to resort to such means 
in midnight lodges for any purpose. Do we «iot know that they make it a boast 
in Pennsylvania that in the Gubernatorial election there, they took the distin- 
guished Democratic candidate. Governor Bigler, from one county to another, 
and his pretended friends of one lodge handed him over (if I may use the ex- 
pression) to the tender care of his professed friends of another lodge who would 
take him in special charge, and in the language of the Gentleman from Ala- 
bama, " cultivate his friendship, probe his designs, and communicate his se- 
crets." Sir, this indicated a degree of proficiency in Jesuitism that would 
have gladdened the heart and raised a ghastly smile even on the countenance of 
old Rodin himself. [Laughter.] 

The Gentleman from Alabama justifies the oath of this order, and says, that 
it finds its justification in the practices of its adversaries. Is not that sound 
doctrine to hold forth in an American Congress ? Finds its justification in the 
practices of its adversaries ! The religious Jesuits are the adversaries he 
speaks of. 

The Gentleman says also, that " an oath solemnly taken is an element of 
purity." Well, Sir, if a solemn oath was what they sought for, this order 
should not have stopped at the oath of the Jesuits, but gone a few centuries 
further back and adopted the oath which Cataline administered to his co-con- 
spirators when they met in the back-room of the house of one Sempronia, a 
Roman bawd — in a place, as the historian says, every way suited for the purpose, 
and well adapted to their occult and dark practices, for there, after administer- 



302 

ing a mighty oath, just as the Know Nothings administer it, they sealed that 
oath by drinking from bowls, draughts of wine mingled with human blood ! 
Was that an element of purity ? Did that oath make them pure ? Why, Sir, 
if the history of those times are correct, they were men of desperate fortunes 
ani abandoned characters — men dangling loose upon society, who were ready 
for any change of aifairs that promised to benefit themselves. 

Then, Sir, the Gentleman says that secrecy is the great element of success, 
and that the " Order should preserve in their halls the most inviolable secrecy," 
all the time acting upon the old doctrine that the end will justify the means^ 
Now, Sir, if this is not Jesuitism, I do not understand what is the meaning of 
the term. But the Grentleman says that it finds its great justification of se- 
crecy in the fact that it is warring against Jesuits. Warring against Jesuits ! 
If the religious Jesuits are what the Gentleman represents them to be, and if 
these political Jesuits of Know Nothingism are what I believe them to be, I 
Sir, should look upon a contest between them with perfect indifference. I 
would look upon it as American citizens now generally look upon the war go- 
ing on between llussia and England, or as a Western hunter would look upon 
a fight between a bear and an alligator, or a mink and a polecat. [Much 
Laughter.] Every objection that the Gentleman has urged against the Jesuits 
seems to apply with equal' force to the Know Nothings. They are neither of 
them suited to our country and they cannot flourish here. One is the counter- 
part of the other, and Sir, as my friend from the Red River district of Loui- 
siana, (Mr. Roland Jones) says, that the men of my State are fond of making 
quotations from Hudibras, let me say to the Gentleman from Alabama, of the 
Know Nothings and Jesuits, that : 

" The}' are so near akin, 
And like in all as well as sin, 
' That put them in a bag and shake 'em, 

Himself on the sudden would mistake 'em, 

And not know which was which, unless 

He measured by their wickedness." [Laughter.] » 

Who set on foot the organizatj^n in the United States ? We first find it 
springing up in the North, in the old hot-bed of federalism. It had been con- 
quered under every name by the Democratic party. It was the old Federal 
party and was conquered under that name. It assumed the name of National 
Republican, then Whig, and then degenerated into isms. The Whig party had 
become almost extinct at the North. There was in fact but one party there and 
that was the Democratic party. All the others were but isms. 

Mr. Washburne, of Illinois. Will the Gentleman tell me in which State at 
the North the Democratic party now exist ? 

Mr. Ruflin. I think it does in Illinois, judging from the late election there. 
[Laughter.] 

Mr. Washburne. I suppose the Gentleman refers to the election of an anti- 
Nebraska Senator. [Renewed laughter.] 

Mr. Ruffin. , No, Sir, I do not, but I will come to his election by and by. 

Mr. Florence. I will say to the Gentleman, that it exists in Pennsylvania, 
thank God! — "its banner torn but flying." [Great Laughter.] *"' 

Mr. Washburne. In what part of Pennsylvania ? 

Mr. Florence. In the First Congressional District. [Renewed laughter.] 
That will do. Now let the Gentleman from N. C. go on. 

Mr. Ruflin. The Democratic party being triumphant at the North, there 
was a fusion of all the isms to oppose it. This organization sprang up. It of- 
fered great inducements. There were a host of old political hacks out of of- 
fice, men who had lived all their lives out of the public crib. They had then 



303 

nothing to resort to. The Democratic party was in power in the jreneral gov- 
ernment and at that time, in most of the States, and these old political hacks, 
who were wandering about like stray spirits on the Stygian banks, thought it a 
fine chance to join in a new venture, and they joined this organiz:ition. i say, 
Sir, that it is taken from the old Federal party. That party has never been 
eradicated at the North. It is true, the old tree of federalism is dead, its 
leaves have long since withered and been wafted away upon the winds of Hea- 
ven, its boughs have crumbled and fallen, and its aged trunk lying prostrate has 
mouldered into dust, but from its prolific roots has sprung up this bastard slip 
of Know Nothingism. It has incorporated into its platform, pjanks from that 
old party. 

Mr. Campbell. Amen ! [Laughter.] ^ 

Mr. Rufliu. Anti-naturalization I Where is that taken from? It is a plank 
of the black cockade federalism of the days of the elder Adams, and the order 
finds a bright example of secrecy in the blue-light federalists who met in the 
Hartford Convention to plot treason against the Government. 

It has flourished in that section of country fruitful in isms, in abolitionism, 
freesoilism, atheism, women's-rightism and every other ism imaginable. These, 
Sir, have given it its strength there, in that section of our country where men 
meet togetber in convention and declare " there is no God ;" where agrarian 
mobs, the very scum of the earth, parade the streets by thousands, recognizing 
no distiction between meum and tmim, and crying aloud for a division of pro- 
perty. In that section of country where weak-minded men, crazy fanatics, 
meet in convention with strong-minded women clothed in boots and breeches, to 
discuss the important question of women's rights. [Laughter.] 

Inaugurated under these auspices, how can it be conservative ? Sir, the idea 
is preposterous. It professes now to be the only true National Conservative 
Union party — whereas it is a sectional radical destructive party. It is an abo- 
lition, disunion scheme, and in every step, its progress gives unerring indi- 
cation of a settled purpose to sever asunder the ties which bind these States 
together. 

It has given strength to the abolitionists of the North, and now it has the 
unblushing effrontery and daring impudence to off"er itself to the South as some- 
thing which is conservative, something which is designed to place in their hands 
and the hands of their friends, the power of the General and State Govern- 
ments. Sir, I for one, never had any confidence in it from the beginning, for 
it came from the wrong quarter. 

" Timao Danaos et dona ferentes." 

I was satisfied that within the cavity of that wooden horse were concealed the 
elements of abolitionism. It was absurd to believe that the abolitionists of the 
North, when they had for years and years in their weakness, waged an off"ensive 
war against the South, would now in the pride of their strength — after their 
shattered ranks had been recruited by untold thousands, after the embattled 
hosts of Know Nothingism had flocked to their standards, not in straggling 
parties like deserters, but in solid column with flags flying and drums beating 
— be so magnanimous as to raise the long siege, and celebrate it with a peace 
offering. I for one, Sir, as a Southern man, cannot trust it. Was I not right, 
Sir, in my opinion at that time ? I say that I was. Recent developments have 
proved this beyond all doubt. The Know Nothing party of the North has 
never aided in the election of a single friend of the^^ Nebraska bill to either 
House of the Congress of the United States. I again assert that it has not. 
I challenge successful contradiction from any quarter and pause for a reply. 
They have elected no man who is willing to give the South the rights guaran- 
teed to it by the Constitution of the United States. Maine, Pennsylvania, 
New York, Ohio, Indiana, Iowa and Wisconsin have returned to this House 



304 

men wlio are pledged to vote for the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law which 
we regard as the very bond which binds the Union together. In the above 
named States it has aided abolition in striking down the true friends of the 
Constitutiop, and filling their places with a dangerous class of politicians. 
Let us see what a Northern Editor says about its doings in the North : 

" But if we lacked positive proof of the feelings of the masses of the party 
in regard to slavery, the late elections in this and other States of the Union 
show the liberal tendencies of the whole party. In New York the American 
party polled 122,000 votes, but they aided the anti-Nebraska party in that 
State in returning to the next Congress twenty-nine men opposed to the admis- 
sion of slavery into Kansas. In Pennsylvania we saw a like result; while in 
Illinois, by the aid of this movement, the Douglasites were completely routed ; 
and so in Michigan, where the whole State was carried for freedom by the 
council fires of the American party." 

But Sir, we are sometimes pointed by Southern Know Nothings to the Mas- 
sachusetts election, and gravely told that the Know Nothings in that State have 
sent a new delegation to Congress with but two exceptions. I am not aware of 
any alteration in this respect so far as liberality and nationality are concerned. 
No Sir, these Yankees of Massachusetts are cunning men and they followed the 
example of the skilful huntsman who, when his hounds are flagging in the 
chase blows them off, lets slip the leashes and hies on a fresh pack, the more 
speedily to hunt down his prey. The people of Massachusetts no doubt thought 
that their representatives here, being removed from the fanaticism which sur- 
rounds them at home, had become less zealous and were rather flagging in the 
chase, and therefore considered it better to send on a new set. [Laughter.] 

But, Sir, if any body has doubted this abolition sentiment of Know Noth- 
ingism, let us look at the recent elections carried by these Know Nothings. 
Look at the men elected by them, — Harlan, the fusionist in Iowa. Trumbull, 
the man of " isms," in Illinois, over the gallant Shields, whose body is scarred 
with wounds received in defence of the flag of his adopted country. Durkee, 
the Abolition agrarian in Wisconsin. Wilson, the embodiment of rampant 
freesoilism in Massachusetts, the latter elected by a Legislature in which there 
was but one Democrat, and — it is said — but some five or six old line Whigs. 
Are the Know Nothings not responsible for the election of these men ? Are 
they not responsible for the election of this Mr. Wilson to the Senate of the 
United States ? Yet another election ! that of Seward, the *' Jupiter Touans" 
of abolition, the " higher law" Senator, who, in the intensity of his hatred of 
the South, stands a head and shoulders above them all. The Know Nothings 
had made a boast that they would defeat him, — that they would show their na- 
tionality in that election, — that they were going to take the arch-agitator from 
the Senate of the United States, and put a conservative in his place. That 
election was looked to with probably more interest than any Senatorial election 
ever held in any of the States of this Union. We all recollect Tuesday, the 
6th of February, — I believe that was the day. It was at all events a dark and 
gloomy day. It was known that the election for United States Senator from 
New York was to be held that day in Albany. The hour had arrived. The 
telegraphic office in this capital was, on that occasion, an interesting place. 
Numbers of politicians might be seen wending their way there — your Southern 
Know Nothings and your Northern Know Nothings. They were there about 
the time when they expected the announcement to come. They were watching 
with straining eyes, and palpitating hearts, and half-suppressed respiration. 
The mystic wire is watched with the fixed gaze of intense anxiety. A message 
comes rushing upon the wings of the lightning. The suspense is but short, 
"The sybil speaks, the dream is o'er." The dispatch is read. It was a sweet 
morsel to your freesoil Know Nothings. They hearkened to it as the prodigal 



305 

son to his father's testament. They gulped it down with all imaginable avidity. 
It was as sweet to them as the manna from Heaven to the hungry Israelites iu 
the wilderness. But how was it to the Southern Know Nothings ? Ah ! it 
■was a bitter pill for them. They had to swallow it down, but oh ! what rueful 
grimaces and contortions of countenance, it was like gall and wormwood to a 
sick and fainting girl. 

Now, Sir, let us see what is thought of him as a national man in the l^orth. 
I read an extract from one of the New York Journals. I do not know whether 
it is Know Nothing or not, but I suppose it is, at all events it was, allied with 
them in the grand contest. 

Speaking of the Senator from New York, it says : 

" He has pressed with equal ardor the claims of Commerce, Agriculture and 
Manufactures — he has vindicated with c(|ual zeal, the just rights and interests 
of the West and South, and those of the East and of the North. There is not 
at this day, in the Senate or in public life, a statesman of more ability — more 
laborious and conscientious in his discharge of public duties, or more thorour^hly 
and truly national in all his views, than Governor Seward." ' 

And again, what a Know Nothing Journal means by conservatism : 

" The slavery question cannot aifect the American party, for its whole power 
and all its hopes are north of Mason and Dixon's line. Its aspirations are for 
freedom, and when the party is accused of being pro-slavery, let its defenders 
point the men who utter the base lie to every election that has occurred since 
the party sprung into existence." 

Also, what is meant by " ignoring slavery." 

'' The party never has, and we hope never will, fulminate anti-slavery resolves 
for the purpose of humbugging the masses, but it will do right, move right, and 
act right, and in every free State in the Union it will give new protection to 
every citizen within its borders. Its first great national aim is to procure an 
alteration of the naturalization laws, and upon that point they will know no 
sectional division ; but upon the great question of freedom and slavery, every 
northern American freeman will raise his voice for liberty, and Banks, DeWitt, 
and Trafton will utter upon the floor of Congress the sentiments of this new 
party. That foreign element that has given the pro-slavery Democratic party 
the control of this country will soon lose the means of augmenting its numbers; 
and when that is effected, freedom in this republic is secure. The prize we are 
battling for is ' liberty to all ;' and when Americans rule America we shall 
obtain it, and not till then." 

Thus we learn what is meant by their " ad captandum" expressions: — conser- 
vative indeed ! '' lucus a non lucendo" called conservative for the same reason 
that a certain mythological character was called Midas, from a Greek word 
meaning to eat, because. he could not eat. What can Southern men promise 
themselves by aflBliating with this "Order?" If the people of the South act 
with their usual foresight, they will fly from it as from a raging pestilence, and 
shun a " Know Nothing" lodge room as they would the charnel-house of a small- 
pox hospital. 

I have thought from the beginning of this new movement that it was an 
emanation from the filth and corruption of rotten and festering isms, and that it 
was a mere vjnis/atuus, fetid miasma springing up from moral and political de- 
cay, corruscating and shining in the darkest hour of night, but disappearing be- 
fore the light of morn. It is not to be expected that the people of the South 
are to be blinded and led by this jack with a lantern into the bogs and marshes- 
of Abolitionism ; nor will they follow Sam with his dark lantern into the mid- 
night conclave of the Know Nothings. But they tell us that these men are 
20 



306 

native Americans, and that we are not to suspect them. Is it not true that 
much the larger portion of the Abolitionists of this country are native-bora 
Americans. Some of the leading spirits who figure in this Know Nothing par- 
ty are foreigners, although the party itself profess such a holy horror for all 
foreigners. The Crusader, a Know Nothing paper at New York, is edited by 
one QAselli, and has for its chief contributor Father Gavazzi. It would require 
but little credulity for one to infer from the columns of the New York Herald, 
that a leading spirit in the councils of the order might be found in its editor. 
Bennett, an unnaturalized foreigner, and a political Ishmaelite, whose hand has 
been against every man, and every man's hand against him, has probably done 
more towards furthering the progress of this order than any man in the United 
States. History will record two remarkable things of this order, one is that 
professing to be composed entirely of native Americans, its chief pillars of 
support are foreigners ; and the other is, that it is a society of political Jesuits, 
professedly formed for the purpose of waging war against religious Jesuits. 

The friends of the ** order" say that it is necessary to establish their secret 
societies ts protect ourselves against foreign influence. In the section of the 
country in which I live, we have none of this foreign influence, and we are not 
troubled with anything of the kind. What foreigners we have among us are 
<renerally intelligent and educated people, men of character, and I suppose one 
reason of it is owing to the fact of the existence of the " peculiar institution" 
among us which I regard as one of the greatest moral, social and political bles- 
sings that was ever vouchsafed to man, and another reason is owing to the fact 
that we have not encouraged these men to come as they have in some of the 
Northern States where they are now complaining of them so much. Why do 
we not know that two or three years ago the people of some of the Northern 
cities regarded foreign fiddlers and show girls as beings worthy of adoration, al- 
most of worship ; then coming from the other side of the Atlantic was of itself 
a certain passport to the highest honors. 

We all recollect with what exultation it was heralded through the land when 
the "Swedish Nightingale" touched the American shores. No one has forgot- 
ten the grand demonstration that was made in the great commercial emporium 
of New York, when the literati, the elite, aristocracy and upper tendom of 
of that city flocked in her train in greater numbers than ever the Pagans fol- 
lowed after the car of Juggernaut. It was but a few years ago that they intro- 
duced at the North, a member of the British Parliament, to lecture upon the 
subject of abolitionism. The people of the North are alone responsible for the 
introduction into the country of that class of turbulent and vicious foreigners, 
of whom they now complain so loudly. 

Here I will say, that I am as much opposed as any man can be to the intro- 
duction into this country of the vagabonds, felons, paupers, and convicts of the 
Old World. I say, let the government pass such laws as it has authority and 
power to do under the constitution, let the States and your municipal corpora- 
lions^ pass such laws as they please, to suppress the introduction of this class of 
foreigners; but do not persecute the well-disposed foreigners on this account. 
You will find it no easy matter to stop the importation of convicts and paupers, 
and when you try it you will ascertain that it will be something like the slave 
trade. Mercenary men will fit out vessels in the port of New York to bring 
convicts and paupers of Europe to this country, as they now fit out slavers to 
sail to the coast of Africa to get slaves for the markets of Brazil and Cuba. I 
do not care what kind of laws you pass against the importation of felons and 
convicts, you will find Yankee captains visiting the ports of Europe, and having 
their agents in its cities to contract secretly with the public authorities to rid 
them of their convicts and vagabonds by bringing them to our seaports — the 
more risk the higher will be the price of passage, and a brisk trade will soon be 
"opened up" by these enterprising men. You may have laws upon your stat- 



307 

ute books, for punisliing in the severest manner those who engage in the impor- 
tation of foreign criminals. You may for what I care, if you can find warrant 
for it in the constitution, put this importation of felons on the same footing 
with piracy — you may take the vessels of the navy and scour the high seas in 
search of the violators of the law — you may, whenever you find a " live cargo'' 
of criminals on board a ship, string up your Yankee skipper to the yard-arm, 
and pitch his body to the fishes of the sea. Even then, sir, I fear it will be 
difficult to stop the importation. Sir, there are now men at the North who have 
wrown rich by the importation of this class of foreigners. Punish those who 
engage in it. Do not adopt the plan recently proposed by the philosopher, 
Horace Greely. That amounts in substance to reducing the poorer class of 
foreigners to slavery, and if it is carried out, New York will become a great 
slave market — white men will be sold at the block. 

I am opposed to making slaves out of any class of white men on earth. I 
know of no good reason for prohibiting the immigration of well-disposed for- 
eigners to this country, to assist in developing its resources. A large portion 
of the foreigners in the West are German farmers, and they are known to be 
good citizens. I for one, can see no reason why an orderly and well-disposed 
class of our population should be persecuted because mercenary men in the 
commercial cities will violate the rules of decency and propriety by bringing a 
different class of foreigners here. Enforce your naturalization laws. We hear 
a great deal said about its having been always customary to naturalize any man 
who desired to be naturalized. In that part of the Union in which I reside, I 
rejoice to say that the naturalization laws of the Federal Government are en- 
forced to the very letter — ^just as strictly as any law we have upon the statute 
book of our State. ]f you will impeach your judges when they violate their 
duty, and make them enforce the law, we can then have none but a good class 
of naturalized citizens, and no man unless he proves a good character, and is 
well disposed to our institutions, &c. can get his naturalization papers. I do 
not understand this sudden change of opinion in regard to foreigners. Twelve 
months ago the ease of Martin Kostza was before this House, and gentlemen 
then seemed to be exceedingly anxious to curry favor with foreigners. Why 
this sudden change ? Is it because military companies composed of naturalized 
citizens stood in serried ranks in Boston, to maintain the laws, and protect the 
officers of the Government in the discharge of their duties, when a Southern 
man was there seeking to claim his property under the Constitution ? Is it be- 
cause these naturalized Irishmen prevented a blood-thirsty mob of native-born 
traitors from rescuing a fugitive slave ? Is it because Bachelder who was as- 
sassinated by that mob was a native of Ireland ? 

Yes, Sir, because these men kept off abolition traitors, we hear this cry 
against them, the fact is notorious that one of the first act of the Know-Nothing 
Governor of Massachusetts was to disband their military companies. I sup- 
pose another reason for the outcry against foreigners is because they generally 
vote the Democratic ticket. In the last presidential canvass the Whig candidate 
proclaimed a new principle on this subject. He was for admitting to the rights 
of citizenship all who had served in the array for a certain length of time, and 
but a short time at that. The Whigs then said he was right — they then said 
that service for a few months in camp — (the last place to learn the operation of 
our institutions) — should entitle a foreigner to citizenship. Such of them as 
have joined this "new movement" now say let no one who is born abroad ever 
be naturalized. 

Yes, Sir, it is because they cannot get the sturdy Germans and generous 
Irish to sing the peans of federalism that they are prejudiced against them. 
The ways of federalism are the ways of inconsistency; before an important elec- 
tion it has a high appreciation of adopted citizens — it is then greatly fascinated 
with the " rich Irish brogue, and the sweet German accent," but the election 



308 

over, and how is it then ? Why, Paddy becomes a " splay-footed Irish bog- 
trotter," and Hans a "damned lop-eared Dutchman." [Laughter.J Why are 
efibrts now made to raise a party opposed to religious toleration. 

And here again I must be permitted to say that I have no relation or con- 
nection, so far as I know, either among the living or* the dead, who ever was a 
member of any Catholic church, and while I yield to no man in the ardent and 
sincere hope that the day will come when the Protestant religion shall have its 
churches and altars in every part of the Globe ; yet. Sir, I do not believe that 
either the festering hand of the government or a persecution of other churches 
would expedite its onward progress. I never will join in persecuting any man 
for his religious opinions. That is a matter between him and his God. In the 
part of the country in which I live, and I dare say in the whole State which I 
have the honor in part to represent, there is not a master who would dictate to 
his slave the manner in which he shall worship God, or the church to which he 
shall belong. This new fangled doctrine of the Know-Nothings to hunt down 
men on account of their religious opinions is a monstrous proposition. It is at 
utter variance with the whole spirit of our government. 

And where did this proscription against the Catholic religion originate ? It 
originated in the same section of the country, at the North, where those three 
thousand and fifty abolition clergymen got up a traitorous petition to the Con- 
gress of the United States. No Catholics joined them. No Catholic signed 
that petition. But, Sir, this seems to be an effort either to make them join the 
abolition party, and engage in an abolition crusade against the South, or that 
they will drive them from the country by persecution. Opposition to this reli- 
gion is held out to us of the South as the reason why we should join this 
" Know-Nothing" order. As the Catholics do not wage a war against us, I, 
for one, am opposed to waging war against them. As long as they obey the 
Constitution and the laws, their rights should be respected by every man. It 
is a deep laid scheme, all these ghost tales, cock-and-bull stories, and old wives' 
fables about the Jesuits and Catholics of the United States. All designed to 
operate on the prejudices of the people. They expect them to operate as a 
charm upon the South, and in that way to throw us off our guard. We. have 
much stronger reasons for apprehending danger from the machinations of the 
3050 wooly-headcd abolition clergymen who with the wierd sanctity of bigotry 
and fanaticism are disseminating treason from their pulpits, than from the 
tiara that encircles the brow of the feeble and harmless old man at Rome, 
thousands and thousands of leagues by land and sea, far, far away from our 
shores. 

But, Sir, in this connexion let us see what is going on in New England — a 
newspaper has this advertisement : 

" Slavery and Popery. — Rev. Thomas James, a fugitive slave, will ad- 
dress the citizens of various towns upon Slavery and Popery, and show their 
bearing on the nation." 

And then follows a list of appointments. If a Southern minister should de- 
sire to preach from one of their pulpits the privilege would be denied him, yet 
this negro can use them. 

I have seen it stated frequently in the papers, that in the great State of New 
York free negroes had actually formed " Know-Nothing" lodges. This is the 
conservative party which the people of the South are invited to join, so as io wage 
war against the Pope. Sir, we have enemies a plenty at our own doors without 
looking across the waters to find others. How is it proposed to sustain the 
Know Nothing party ? By boasting and threats. The gentleman from Mary- 
land (Mr. SoUers) would have us believe that this party is one of gigantic 
power, and that he who has any hopes of a political future should not be so rash as 
to combat it. He says " it has gone sweeping like a whirlwind" and " annihilat- 



309 

ing all its opponents." He appeals to the fears of gentlemen, and talks to them 
of°poIitieal graves — let him take heed lest when looking around for burial places 
for others, he shall himself be consigned to a political grave as deep as the 
<' gloom where dreary chaos reigns" and where he may be even beyond the 
reach of that politico geological explorer of whom he spoke, who at some fu- 
ture day is to search for the opponents of Know Nothingism among the fossil 
remains of an extinct race. I, Sir, tender my thanks to the eloquent gentle- 
men from Mississippi and South Carolina (Mr. Barry an;i Mr. Keit) for their 
exposition of the objects and aims of the Know Nothings, and for their moral 
courage in being first on this floor to assail the principles of this new order — 
with keen blades and stalwart blows they shivered into fragments the crazy 
mail that but feebly protected this staggering carca^ of galvanized federalism, 
and exhibited it in its nakedness and hideous deformity to the gaze of the 
world. The order had not then so fully developed its anti-slavery sentiment. 
The gentleman clamed for it " mtense nationalfi/." We were to hear no more 
of the invasion of Southern rights, if they dared make the attempt he himself 
would meet his Northern friends at Mason & Wxon's line, not as brothers but 
with "banner, brand and bow." Let him adhere to this determination when 
the rights of the South are invaded— let him be prepared to defend them— when 
the Scotts cross the border line, let him as a true knight, wind the cornage 
horn. 

Know Nothingism professes to be eminently patriotic, struggling for the com- 
mon weal, not for otlice. Well, Mr. Chairman, why is it, that whetever they 
have reached power they have proscribed all, from the highest officials even down 
to the hog constables of the little towns. Anticipating a majority in the next 
House of'Ptepresentatives, there are already hosts of applicants for the places 
within its gift. Yes sir, if all the men who aspire to these offices were formed 
into regiments and drilled for a few weeks, General Scott could take them to 
the Crimea and carry Sebastopol by storm. 

They are looking after all the places, from the Speaker's chair down to the 
humble office held by the sable high priest who ministers at the altars of the 
temple of Cloasina in the basement of this Capitol. (Laughter.) 

Look at their election in this city ? It was an extraordinary affair. They 
seemed to be after the Exchequer, the first thing, like Sir John Falstaff. They 
desired to get the control of the funds of the Washington National Monument. 
They banded together in this capital and proscribed such men as General Win- 
field Scott, Mr. Seaton, Gen. Jones, Elisha Whittlesay and others, to make^room 
for such renowned and august individuals as Vespasian Ellis, French S. Evans, 
*' et id omne genus." 

Yes sir, General Scott was proscribed— the eagle was stricken from his eyre 
to put the mousing owl there. This plot is said to have been concocted at the 
National Council of Know Nothings held at Cincinnati. What right had these 
intolerant proscriptionists to take in charge the Monument to Washington ? 
Let his own words rebuke them. I read from a letter written by the Father of 
his country to a committee of the Baptist church of Va., after paying a high 
and just compliment to the Baptist for their patriotism and liberality, he says : 

« If I could have entertained the slightest apprehension that the Constitution 
framed in the convention where I had the honor to preside might possibly en- 
danger the religious rights of any ecclesiastical society, certainly I would never 
have placed my signature to it ; and if I could now conceive that the General 
Government might ever be so administered as to render the liberty of conscience 
insecure, I beg you will be persuaded that no one would be more zealous than 
myself to establish efi"ectual barriers against the horrors of spiritual tyranny 
and every species of religious persecution ; for you doubtless remember I have 
often expressed my sentiments that every man, conducting himself a* a good 



310 

citizen, and bjing accountable to God alone for his religious opinions, ought to 
be protected in worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of his own con- 
science." 

Mr. Chairman. I have heard many strange sentiments expressed in this hall, 
but there was one uttered by the gentleman from Mass. (Mr. Banks) which for 
boldness and originality, surpasses all others. After speaking of the power, the 
secret plans, the covered cavernous ways of the order, he says — 

" Sir, it is the people who are passing through these avenues, those who make 
judges and district attorneys, and they will take care of them all. They will 
take care of the juries and sheriff's as well as judges." 

The startling announcement has been made by a representative on the floor of 
the American Congress, that this secret order is to take charge of the judges 
and juries of the country. Yes sir, it is to lay its ruthless hand upon the judi- 
cial ermine. When that is done, our laws will not be worth the paper on which 
they are written. If the judges of the courts are to be overawed by the com- 
binations and machinations of midnight conspirators, what becomes of our indi- 
vidual safety ? Is such an association fit for American citizens ? Can it be 
commended to the South ? The judiciary is the great shield of our protection. 
Destroy it, and the Constitution would be no more than a rope of sand. 

They took care of Judge Loring. This is an illustration of the state of feel- 
ing existing in what is called the Athens of America. There a judge is pro- 
scribed for doing what he conscientiously believed to be his duty. He did his 
duty and I presume that no man will here deny it. He delivered up to his 
owner, after a patient hearing of all the facts, the fugitive slave, Anthony 
Eurns; and, for this, he is proscribed and hunted down as a wild beast. That 
is what is meant by the taking care of judges. Is not a Know Nothing asso- 
ciation illegal ? It has been so held by one of the ablest jurists of the country. 
Judge Porter, of Pa., once a member of the Cabinet, in a late charge to a grand 
jury ia reference to it, used this language : 

" If any number of men combine to form themselves into an association by 
agreements, vows, or oaths to control the opinions and votes of any portion of 
our citizens in the exercise of their suffrages, so that they shall vote not accor- 
ding to their own choice or the dictates of their own consciences, but as a ma- 
jority of such association shall determine, it is a conspiracy, and punishable as 
such by indictment. 

And you will remember that it is the agreement to do the act that constitutes 
the criminality, even if the act itself be not done. It may be well here to ob- 
serve that if any person or persons shall have unthinkingly, unadvisedly, or with- 
out being aware of the criminal character of such an act, joined such association, 
or taken upon himself any such vows, obligations, or oaths, they are not binding 
upon him in law, and ought not to be in morals. He will enact the part of a 
good citizen by eschewing all such fellowship or association, and abandoning the 
illegal enterprise." 

This Know Nothingism is a step in advance of Jesuitism, it combines higher 
law " ism" — it claims supremacy over all laws. Is such an institution to be 
tolerated : 

Is law to be perverted from its course ? 
Is abject fraud to league with brutal force ? 
Is freedom to be crushed, and every son 
Who dares maintain her cause to be undone ? 
Is base corruption creeping through the land 
To plan and work her ruin underhand ? 



311 

Mr. Chairman. In the sincerity of my heart, I hope the people of the South 
vrill take warning, and not affiliate with such an organization. I have reason 
to believe that many good and patriotic men in the South, of both political par- 
ties, have joined this new movement. It is to be hoped they will take warning 
in time. I beseech them to study more closely the aims of this order, before 
decidiu£C in its favor. I beseech them to test " Sam" by his principles, and 
they will find that, like the evil spirit when touched with the spear of Ithuriel, 
he will squat, toadlike, to the earth. They will find that " Sam," the good ge- 
nius of the order, has flirted and caressed with every " ism" of the day. Sir, 
I proclaim it with pride, that the State which I have the honor, in part, to rep- 
resent has, at all times and under all circumstances, been true to the Constitu- 
tion and the Union— she is eminently conservative, and no "ism" ever got 
foothold there, and for this she has been charged with being always asleep. 
Better, far better, that she should sleep on, than to arouse from her slumbers to 
find herself locked in the meretricious embraces of that graceless libertine, 
dubbed by its godfathers with the euphonious and classical sobriquet of " Sam." 
I have too high a regard for my native State, to suspect, for even a moment, 
that her people will be controlled by sujh influences. North Carolina will do 
nothing to endanger the liberties of her people and the union of these States — 
nothing to tarnish the bright escutcheon of her ancient renown. In the olden 
time, she was the first to rise up against the oppressions of the British King — 
within her borders the first declaration of independence was made — the hills of 
Mecklenberg first re-echoed the hosannas of a people who had declared them- 
selves free and independent, and along Carolina's mountain passes, first rever- 
berated the sacret hymn of freedom, "nature's melodious anthem" as her pa- 
triotic sons hailed with soul stirring shouts the newborn Goddess of American 
liberty. The men of that day met openly and boldly, and God forbid that 
their descendents should discard the noble example. 

If there are laws requiring repeal or amendment, why not go about the work 
openly as heretofore ? The time is not auspicious for the Southern people to 
inaugurate new practices. It is said, that in the Know Nothing councils the 
majority govern absolutely, and that the National Council governs the State coun- 
cils. Who can tell what mandatory edicts this National Council may issue ? Nor- 
thern Know Nothings control it— Northern Know Nothings are in favor of exclu- 
ding all persons who cannot read and write from voting. Will their Southern 
brethren stand with them on that platform. The North has kept the South poor 
by high protective tariff's and navigation laws — has drawn from it that wealth 
which would have enabled it to educate all its people, and now, because we have 
a large number of persons who have not received the benefits of an education, 
the Northern Know Nothings arrogantly propose to add insult to injury, by de- 
claring to us who are to be admitted to the right of sufi'rage. They had as well 
let us alone ; we can manage our own affairs. The Whigs of the South have, 
heretofore, advocated principles. Why quit them now? Why should any 
Southern Democrat quit his party no>v ? It has proved itself equal to every 
emergency. Under its principles the country has prospered. It is the party of 
progress, of State rights — of the Constitution— pledged to maintain all its 
guarantees. G-eneral Pierce has proved true to the principles upon which be 
was elected — true to the Constitution, and consequently to the South. If he 
has lost ground, he lost it by maintaining the rights of the South. He has 
proved himself a friend to the South. Ingratitude is not a trait in Southern 
character, and every true Democrat in the Southern States will sustain his ad- 
ministration, so long as he stands on that great platform, the "Constitution of 
our country/' and administers the Government upon the principles of that in- 
strument. 



312 



LETTER OF HON. A. H. STEPHENS, OF GEORGIA. 

Equally effective was the following able letter, in the canvass in Virginia and 
other Southern States. 

Crawfordville, Ga., May 9th, 1855. 

DcMv Sir : — Your letter of the 5th inst. was received some days ago, and 
should have been answered much earlier, but for ray absence from home. The 
rumor you mention in relation to my candidacy for re-election to Congress, is 
true. I have stated, and repeated on various occasions, that I was not, and did 
not expect to be, a candidate — the same I now say to you. The reason of this 
declaration on my part, was the fact, that large numbers of our old political 
friends seemed to be entering into new combinations with new objects, purposes 
and principles of which I was not informed, and never could be, according to 
the rules of their action and the opinions I entertain. Hence my conclusion, 
that they had no further use for me as their representative ; for I presumed 
they knew enough of me to be assured if they had any secret aims or 
objects to accomplish that they never could get my consent, even if they de- 
sired it, to become a dumb instrument to execute such a purpose. I Certainly 
never did, and never shall, go before the people as a candidate for their suffrages 
with my principles in my pocket. It has been the pride of my life, heretofore, 
not only to make known fully and freely my sentiments upon all questions of 
public policy, but in vindication of those sentiments thus avowed, to meet any 
antagonist arrayed against them, in open and manly strife — '-face to face and 
toe to toe." From this rule of action, by which I have up to this time been 
governed, I shall never depart. But you ask me what are my opinions and 
views of this new party, called Know Nothings, with a request that you be 
permitted to publish them. My opinions and views thus solicited, shall be 
given most cheerfully, as fully and clearly as my time, under the pressure of 
business, will allow. You can do with them as you please — publish them, or 
not, as you like. They are the views of a private citizen. I am at present, to 
all. intents and purposes whatsoever, literally one of the people. I hold no office 
nor seek any, and as one of the people I shall speak to you and them on this, 
and on all occasions, with that frankness and independence which it becomes a 
freeman to bear towards his fellows. And in giving my views of " Know 
Nothingism," I ought, perhaps, to premise by saying, and saying most truly, 
that I really '' know nothing" about the principles, aims or objects of the party 
I am about to speak of — they are all kept secret — being communicated and 
made known only to the initiated, and not to these until after being first duly 
^pledged and sworn. This, to me, is a very great objection to the whole organi- 
zation. All political principles, which are sought to be carried in legislation by 
any body or set of men in a republic, in my opinion, ought to be openly avowed 
and publicly proclaimed. Truth never shuns the light nor shrinks from investi- 
gation — or at least it ought never to do it. Hiding places, or secret coverts, 
are natural resorts for error. It is, therefore, a circumstance quite sufficient to 
excite suspicion against the truth to see it pursuing such a course. And in re- 
publics where free discussion and full investigation by a virtuous and intelligent 
people is allowed, there can never be any just grounds to fear any danger even 
from the greatest errors in religion or politics. All questions, therefore, rela- 
ting to the government of a free people, ought to be made known, clearly un- 
derstood, fully discussed, and understandingly acted upon. Indeed, I do not 
believe that a republican government can last long, where this is not the case. 
In my opinion, no man is fit to represent a free people who has any private or 
secret objects, or aims, that he does not openly avow, or who is not ready and 



313 

willing, at all times, when required or asked, candidly and truthfully, to pro- 
claim °o the assembled multitude not ouly his principles, but his views and 
sentiments upon all questions that may come before him in his representative , 
capacity. It was on this basis that representative government was founded, 
and on this alone can it be maintained in purity and safety. And if any secret 
party shall ever be so far successful in this country as to bring the government 
in all its departments and functions under the baneful influence of_ its control 
and power, political ruin will inevitably ensue. No truth in politics can be 
more easily and firmly cst^iblished, either by reason or from history, upon prin- 
ciple or authority than this. These are my opinions, candidly expressed. _ 

I know that many good and true men in Georgia differ with me in this par- 
ticular—thousands of "them, I doubt not, have joined this secret order witli 
good intentions. Some of them have told me so, and I do not question their 
motives. And thousands more will, perhaps, do it with the same intentions and 
motives. Should it be a short lived affai^-, -no harm will or may come of it. 
But let it succeed — let it carry all the elections, State and Federal— let the na- 
tural and inevitable laws of its own organism be once fully developed— and the 
country will go by the board. It will go as France did. The first Jacobin 
Club was organized in Paris on the Gth of November 1789, under the alluring 
name of " the Friends of the Constitution," quite as specious as that we now hear 
of " Americans shall rule America." Many of the best men and truest patriots 
joined it — and thousands of the same sort of men joined the affiliate clubsaf- 
terwards- little dreaming of the deadly fangs of that viper they were nurturing 
in their bosoms. Many of these very men afterwards went to the guillotine, 
by orders passed secretly in these very clubs. All legislation was settled in the 
clubs— members of the National Assembly and Convention, all of them, or 
most of them, were members of the clubs, for they could not be otherwise elec- 
ted. And after the question was settled in the clubs, the members went next 
day to the nominal Halls of Legislation nothing but trembling automatons, to 
register the edicts of the " Order," though it were to behead a monarch, or to 
cause the blood of the best of their own number to flow beneath the stroke of 
the axe. Is history of no use ? Or do our people vainly imagine that Ameri- 
cans would not do as the French did under like circumstances ? " Is tby ser- 
vant a dog that he should do this thing?" said the haughty, self-confidant 
Ilazeel. Yet, he did all that he bad been told that he would do. " Let him 
that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." Human nature is the same 
compound of weak frailties and erring passions everywhere. Of these clubs in 
France, an elegant writer has said : 

" From all other scourges which had afSicted mankind, in every age and ia 
every nation, there had been some temporary refuge, some shelter until the 
storm might pass. During the heathenism of antiquity, and the barbarism of 
the middle ages, the temple of a god or the shrine of a saint, afforded a refuge 
from despotic fury or popular rage. But French Jacobins, whether native or 
adopted, treated with equal scorn the sentiments of religion and the feelings of 
humanity ; and all that man had gathered from his experience upon earth, and 
the revelations he hoped had been made him from the sky, to bless and adorn 
his mortal existence, and elevate his soul with immortal aspirations, were 
spurned as imposture by these fell destroyers. They would have depraved man 
from his humanity, as they attempted to decree God out of his universe. ^ Not 
contented with France as a subject of their ruthless experiments — Europe itself 
being too narrow for their exploits, (hey send they propagandists to the new 
world, with designs about as charitable as those with which Satan entered 
Eden." 

This is but a faint picture of some of the scenes enacted by that self same 
party, which was at first formed by those who styled themselves " the' friend.s 



of the Constitution." And where did these " secret Councils" we now hear 
of come from ? Not from France, it is true — but from that hind of nina, 
where the people would have gone into anarchy long ago, if it had not been for 
the conservative influence of the more stable minded men of the South ? And 
what scenes have we lately witnessed in the Massachusetts Legislature, where 
the new political organism has more fully developed itself than any where else. 
What are its fruits there ? Under the name of " The American Party," they 
have armed themselves against the Constitution of our common country which 
they were sworn to support — with every member of the Legislature, I believe, 
save eight belonging to "the order," they have by an overwhelming majority 
vote deposed Judge Loring, for the discharge of his official duty, in issuing a 
warrant as United States Commissioner, to cause the arrest of the fugitive-slave 
Eurns. In reviewing this most unheard of outrage upon the Constitution, the 
''National Intelligencer," at Washington, says it "shudders for the Judiciary." 
And if they go on as they have begun, well may the country " shudder," not 
only for the Judiciary, but for everything else we hold most sacred. " If these 
things be done in the green tree, what may you expect in the dry." 

But I have been anticipating somewhat. I was on the preliminary question; 
that is, the secrecy which lies at the foundation of the party — that atmosphere 
of darkness in which " it lives, and moves, and has its being," and without 
which probably it could not exist. I do not, however, intend to stop with that. 
I will go further, and give, now, my opinions upon those questions, which are 
said to be within the range of its secret objects and aims. The principles as 
published (or those principles which are attributed to the Order, though no 
body as an organized party avow them,) have, as I understand them, two lead- 
ing ideas, and two only. These are a proscription by an exclusion from of- 
fice of all Catholics, as a class, and a proscription of all persons of foreign birth, 
as a class; the latter to be accomplished not only by an exclusion from office 
of all foreigners who are now citizens by naturalization, but to be more effec- 
tually carried out by an abrogation of the naturalization law for the future, or 
such an amendment as would be virtually tantamount to it. These, as we are 
told, are the great ostensible objects for all this machinery — these oaths — 
pledges — secret signs — equivocations — denials, and what not. And what I have 
to say of them, is, that if these indeed and in truth be the principles thus at- 
tempted to be carried out, then I am opposed to both of them, openly and un- 
qualifiedly. 

I am opposed to them " in a double aspect," both as a basis of party organ- 
ization and upon their merits as questions of public policy. As the basis of 
party organization, they are founded upon the very erroneous principle of look- 
ing, not to how the country shall be governed, but who shall hold the of- 
fices — not to whether we shall have wise and holdsome laws, but who shall 
" rule us," though they may bring ruin with their rule. Upon this principle, 
Trumbull, who defeated Gen. Shields for the Senate in Illinois, can be as good 
a " Know Nothing," as any man in the late " Macon Council," though he 
may vote as he doubtless will, to repeal the Fugitive Slave law, and against the 
admission of any slave State in the Union ; while Shields, who has ever stood 
by the Constitution, must be rejected by Southern men because he was not born 
in the country ? Upon this principle a Boston Atheist, who denies the inspira- 
tion of the Bible, because it sanctions slavery, is to be sustained by GJ-eorgia 
" Know Nothings" in preference to me, barely because I will not " bow the 
knee to Baal," this false political god they have set up. The only basis of 
party organization is an agreement amongst those who enter into it upon the 
paramount question of the day. And no party can last long without bringing 
disaster and ruin in its train, founded upon any other principle. The old Na- 
tional Whig party tried the experiment when there was radical differences of 
opinion on such questions, and went to pieces. The National Democratic party 



315 

are now trying a similar experiment, and are experiencing a similar fate. This 
is what is the°matter with it. Its vital functions are deranged— hence that 
disease which now afflicts it worse than dry rot. And what we of the _ South 
now should do is, not to go into any " Know Nothing" mummery or mischief, 
as it may be, but to stand firmly by those men at the North who are true to the 
Constitution and the Union, without regard either to their birth place or reli- 
gion. The question we should consider is not simply who ".shall rule Ameri- 
ca," but who will vote for such measures as will best promote the interests of 
America, and with that the interests of mankind. 

But to pass to the other view of these principles — that is, the consideration 
of them as questions of public policy. With me, they both stand in no better 
light in this aspect than they do in the other. The first assumes temporal ju- 
risdiction in '^ forum conecicnliee" — to which I am quite as much opposed as I 
am to the spiritual powers controlling the temporal. One is as bad as the other 
— both are bad. I am utterly opposed to mingling religion with politics in any 
way whatever, and especially am I opposed to making h a test in qualifications 
for civil office. Keligion is a matter between a man and his Creator, with 
which goveruments should have nothing to do. In this country the Constitu- 
tion guarantees to every citizen the right to entertain whatever creed he pleases 
or no creed at all if he is so inclined, and no other man has a right to pry into 
bis conscience to enquire what he believes, or what he does not believe. 
As a citizen and as a member of society, he is to be judged by hi.s acts 
and not by his creed. A Catholic, therefore, in our country, and in all 
all countries ought, as all other citizens, to be permitted to stand or fall in pub- 
lic favor and estimation upon his own individual merits. " Every tub should 
stand upon its own bottom." 

But I think of all the christian denominations in the United States, the Ca- 
tholics are the last that Southern people should join in attempting to put under 
the ban of civil proscription. For as a church they have never warred against us 
or our peculiar institutions. No man can say as much of New England Bap- 
tists, Presbyterians or Methodists; the long roll of abolition petitions, with 
which Congress has been so much excited and agitated for years past, come not 
from the Catholics ; their pulpits at the North are not desecrated every Sab- 
bath with anathemas against slavery. And of the three thousand New Eng- 
land clergymen who sent the anti-Nebraska memorial to the Senate last year, 
not one was a Catholic as I have been informed and believe. Why then should 
we Southern men join the Puritans of the North to proscribe from office the 
Catholics on account of their religion ? Let them and their religion be, as bad 
as can be, or as their accusers say they are, they cannot be worse than these 
same Puritanical accusers, who started this persecution against them say that 
■we are. They say we are going to perdition for the enormous sin of holding 
slaves. The Pope with all his followers cannot I suppose, even in their judg- 
ment, be going to a worse place for holding what they consider the monstrous 
absurdity of " immaculate conception." And for my part I would about as 
soon risk my own chance for Heaven with him, and his crowd too, as with these 
self-righteous hypocrites who deal out fire and brimstone so liberally upon our 
heads.^ At any rate I have no hesitancy in declaring that I should much sooner 
risk my civil rights with the American Catholics, whom they are attempting to 
drive from office, than with them. But sir, I am opposed to_ this proscription 
upon principle. If it is once begun there is no telling where it will end. When 
faction once tastes the blood of a victim it seldom ceases its ravages amongst 
the fold so long as a single remaining one, be the number at first ever so great, 
is left surviving. It was to guard against any such consequences as would cer- 
tainly ensue in this country if this effort at proscription of this sect of re- 
ligionists should be successful, that that wise provision to which I have alluded 
was put in the fundamental law of the Union. And to maintain it intact in 



316 

letter and spirit with steadfastness at this time, I hold to be a most solemn pub- 
lic duty. 

And now, as to the other idea — the proscription of foreigners — and more par- 
ticularly that view of it which looks to the denial of citizenship to all those 
who may hereafter seek a home in this country and choose to cast their lots and 
destinies with us. This is a favorite idea with many wlio have not thought of 
its eifects, or reflected much upon its consequences. The abrogation of the 
naturalization laws would not stop immigration, nor would the extension of the 
term of probation, to the period of twenty-one years do it. This current of migra- 
tion from East to West, this Exodus of the excess of population from the Old to the 
New World, which commenced with the settlement of this continent by Europeans 
would still go on. And what would be the effect, even under the most modified 
form of the proposed measure — that is of an extension of the period from five 
to twenty-one years, before citizenship should be granted ? At the end of the 
first twenty-one years from the commencement of the law, we should have seve- 
ral millions of people in our n'lidst — men of our own race — occupying the un- 
enviable position of being a degraded caste in society, a species of serfs without 
the just franchise of & freeman or the needful protection due to a slave. This 
would be at war with all my ideas of American Kepublicanism as I have been 
taught them and gloried in them from my youth up. If there be danger now 
to our institutions, (as some seem to imagine, but which I am far from feeling 
or believing,) from foreigners as a class, would not the danger be greatly en- 
hanced by the proposed remedy ? Now it is true they are made to bear their 
share of the burthens of Government, but are permitted, after a residence of 
five years, and taking an oath to support the Constitution, to enjoy their just 
participation in tlie privileges, honors and immunities which it secures. Would 
they be less likely to be attached to the Government and its principles under 
the operation of the present system, than they would be under the proposed one 
which would ti'eat them as not much better than outcasts and outlaws ? All 
writers of note, from the earliest to the latest, who have treated upon the ele- 
ments and component parts, or members of communities and States, have point- 
ed this out as a source of real danger — having a large number of the same 
race, not only aliens by birth but aliens in heart and feeling, in the heart of so- 
ciety. 

Such was, to a great extent, the condition of the Helots in Greece — men of 
the same race placed in an inferior position, and forming within themselves a 
degraded class. I wish to see no such state of things in this country. With 
us at the South, it is true, we have a " degraded caste," but it is of a race fitted 
by nature for their subordinate position. The negro, with us, fills that place in 
society and under our system of civilization for which he was designed by na- 
ture. No training can fit him for either social or political equality with his su- 
periors ; at least history furnishes us with no instance of the kind ; nor does 
the negro with us feel any degradation in his position, because it is his natural 
place. But such would not be the case with men of the same race, and coming 
from the same State with ourselves. And what appears not a little strange 
and singular to me in considering this late movement is, that if it did not ori- 
ginate with, yet it is now so generally and zealously favored by so many of 
those men at the North who have expended so much of their misguided philan- 
thropy in behalf of our slaves. They have been endeavoring for years to ele- 
vate the African to an equality socially and politically with the white man. 
And now, they are moving heaven and earth to degrade the white man to a 
condition lower than that held by the negro in the South. The Massachusetts 
** Know Nothing" Legislature passed a bill lately to amend their Constitution, 
so as to exclude from the polls in that State, hereafter, all naturalized citizens, 
from whatever nation they may come ; and yet they will allow a runaway negro 
slave from the South the same right to vote that they give to their own native 



317 

born sons ! They thus exhibit the strange paradox of warring against their 
own race — their own bh)nd — even their own "kith and kiu," it may be, while 
they are vainly and fanatically endeavoring to reverse the order of nature, by 
making the black man equal to the white. Shall we second them in any such 
movement ? Shall we even countenance them so far as to bear the same name 
— to say nothing of the same pledges, passwords, signs and symbols ? Shall we 
affiliate and unite ourselves under the same banner, with men whose acts show 
them to be governed by such principles, and to be bent upon such a purpose ? 
This is a question for Southern men to consider. Others may do it if they 
choose ; but I tell you, I never shall ; that you may set down as a " fixed fact," 
— one of the fixedest of the fixed. I am not at all astonished at the rapid 
spread of this new sentioaent at the North, or rather new way of giving embo- 
diment and life to an old sentiment, long cherished by a large class of the 
Northern people, notwithstanding the paradox. It is true, " Know Nothingisni" 
did not originate, as I understand its origin, with the class I allude to. It com- 
menced with the laborers and men dependant upon capital for work and em- 
ployment. It sprang from the antagonism of their interests to foreigners seek- 
ing like employments, who Were underbidding them in the amount of wages. 
But many capitalists of that section, the men who hold the land and property 
in their own hands, wishing to dispense with laborers and employees, whose 
votes at the polls are equal to their own, seized upon this new way of effecting 
their old, long-cherished desire. And the more eagerly as they saw that many 
of the very men whom they have ever dreaded as the insuperable obstacle be- 
tween them and their purpose, had become the willing, though unconscious in- 
strument of carrying that purpose out, which, from the beginning, was a desire 
to have a votingless population to do their work, and perform all the labor, both 
in city, town and country, which capital may require. And as certainly as 
such a law shall be passed, so far from its cheeking immigration, there will be 
whole cargoes of people from other coutries brought over, and literally bought 
up in foreign ports — to bo brought over in American ships to supply the mar- 
ket for labor throughout all the free States of the Union. The African Slave 
Trade, if ro-opened, would not exhibit a worse spectacle in trafficking in human 
flesh, than those most deluded men of the North who started this thing, and 
who are now aiding to accomplish the end, may find they have but kindled a 
flame to consume themselves. The whole sub stratum of Northern society will 
soon be filled up with a class who can work, and who, though white, cannot vote. 
This is what the would-be lords of that section have been wanting for a long 
time. It is a scheme with many of them lo get white slaves instead of black 
ones. No American laborer, or man seeking employment there, who has a vote, 
need to expect to be retained long when his place can be more cheaply filled by 
a foreigner who has none. This will be the practical working of the proposed 
reforn-Kition. This is the philosophy of the thing. It is a blow at the ballot 
box. It is an insidious attack upon general suff'rage. In a line with this policy, 
the " Know Nothing" Governor of Connecticut has already recommended the 
passage of a law denying the right of voting to all who cannot read and write. 
And hence, the great efforts which arc now being made throughout the North, 
to influence the elections, not only these, but in spending their money in the 
publication of books and tracts written by " nobody knows who," and scattered 
broad-cast throughout the Southern States, to influence elections here by appeal- 
ing to the worst of passions and strongest prejudices of our nature, not omittint^ 
those even which bad and wicked men can invoke under the sacred but prosti- 
tuted name of religion. 

Unfortunately for the country, many evils which all good men regret and 
deplore, exist at this time, which have a direct tendency, wonderfully to aid 
and move forward this ill-omened crusade. These relate to the appointment of 
60 many foreigners — wholly unfit, not only to minister offices at home, but to 



318 

represent our country, as Ministers, abroad. And to the great frauds and gross 
abuses which at present attend the administration of our naturalization laws — 
these are the evils felt by the whole country, and they ought to be corrected. 
Not by a proscription of all foreigners without regard to individual merits. 
But in the first place by so amending the naturalization laws, as effectually to 
check and prevent these frauds and abuses. And in the second place, by hold- 
ing to strict accountability at the polls in our elections, all those public func- 
tionaries, who either with partisan views, or from whatever' motive, thus im- 
properly confer office, whether high or low, upon undeserving foreigners, to the 
exclusion of native born citizens, better qualified to fill them. Another evil 
now felt, and which ought to be remedied, is the flooding, it is said, of some of 
the cities with paupers and criminals from other countries. These ought all to 
be unconditionally excluded and prohibited from coming amongst us — there is 
no reason why we should be the feeders of other nations' paupers, or either the 
keepers or executioners of their felons — these evils can and ought to be reme- 
died without resorting to an indiscriminate onslaught upon all who by industry, 
enterprise and merit may choose to better their condition in abandoning the re- 
spective dynasties of the Old World in which they may have chanced to have 
been born, and by uniting their energies with ours, may feel a pride in advan- 
cing the prosperity, development and progress of a common country not much 
less dear to them than to us. Against those who thus worthily come, who quit 
the misruled Empires of their " father land," whose hearts have been fired with 
the love of our ideas and our insti^tutions even in distant climes, I would not 
close the door of admission. But to all such as our fathers did at first, so I 
would continue most freely and generously to extend a welcome hand. We 
have from such a class nothing to fear. When in battle or in the walks of 
civil life did any such ever prove traitor or recreant to the flag or cause of his 
country ? On what occasion have any such ever proven untrue or disloyal to 
the Constitution ? 

I will not say that no foreigner has ever been untrue to the Constitution ; 
but as a class they certainly have not proven themselves so to be. Indeed, I 
know of but one class of people in the United States at this time that I look 
upon as dangerous to the country. That class are neither foreigners or Catho- 
lics — They are those native born traitors at the North who are disloyal to the 
Constitution of that country which gave them birth, and under whose beneficent 
institutions they have been reared and nurtured. Many of them are " Know 
Nothings." This class of men at the North-, of which the Massachusetts, New 
Hampshire and Connecticut " Know Nothing" Legislatures are but samples, I 
consider as our worst enemies. And to put them down, I will join, as political 
allies now and forever, all true patriots at the North and South, whether na- 
tive or adopted, Jews or Gentiles. 

What our Georgia friends, whether Whigs or Democrats, who have gone into 
this " New Order," are really after, or what they intended to do, I cannot imagine. 
Those of them whom I know have assured me that their object is reform, both 
in our State and Federal Administrations — to put better and truer men in the 
places of those who now wield authority — that they have no sympathies as party 
men or otherwise with that class I speak of at the North — that they are for 
sustaining the Union platform of o*ir State of 1850, and that the mask of se- 
crecy will soon be removed when all will be made public. If these be their 
objects, and also to check the frauds and correct the abuses in the existing nat- 
uralization laws, which I have mentioned, without the indiscriminate prohcrip- 
tion of any class of citizens on account of their birth place or religion, then they 
will have my co-operation, as I have told them, in every proper and legitimate way, 
to effect such a reformation. Not as a secretly initiated co-worker in the dark for 
any purpose, but as an open and bold advocate of truth in the light of day. 
But will they do as they say ? Will they throw off the mask ? That is the 



319 

question. Is it possible that they vcill continue in political party fcllow«?!iip 
with their " worthy brethren" of Massichusctts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, 
and the entire North ? Every one of wliom elected to the next Congress is 
our deadly foe ! Do they intend to continue their alliance with these open ene- 
mies of our institutions and the Constitution of the country under the totally 
misnamed association of the " American Party" — the very principle upon which 
it is based being anti-American throughout ? 

True Americanism, as I have learned it, is like true Christianity — disciples in 
neither are confined to any nation, clime, or soil whatsoever. Americanism is 
not the product of the soil, it springs not from the land or the ground; it is not 
of the earth, or earthly ; it emanates from the head and the heart ; it looks up- 
ward, and onward, and outward; its life and soul are those grand ideas of gov- 
ernment which characterize our institutions and distinguish us from all other 
people ; and there is no two features in our system which so signally distinguish 
us from all other nations, as free toleration of religion and the doctrine of expa- 
triation — the right of a man to throw off his allegiance to any and every other 
State, Prince or Potentate whatsoever, and by naturalization to be incorporated 
as citizens into our body politic. 

Both these principles are specially provided for and firmly established in our 
Constitution. But these American ideas which were proclaimed in 1789 by 
our " sires of '76," are by their " sons" at this day derided and scoffed at. We 
are now told that "naturalization" is a "humbug," and that it is an "impossi- 
bility." So did not our fathers think. 

This "humbug" and "impossibility" they planted in the Constitution ; and 
a vindication of the same principle was one of the causes of our second war of 
independence. England held that " naturalization" was an impossible thing. 
She claimed the allegiance of subjects born within her realm, notwithstanding 
they had become citizens of this Bepublic by our Constitution and laws. She 
not only claimed their allegiance, but she claimed the right to search our ships 
upon the high seas, and take from them all such who might be found in them. 
It was in pursuit of this doctrine of hers — of the right of search for our "nat- 
uralization" citizens — that the Chesapeake was fired into, which was the imme- 
diate cause of the war of 1812. Let no man then, barely because he was born 
in America, presume to be imbued with real and true " Americanism" who 
either ignores the direct and positive obligations of the Constitution, or ignores 
this, one of its most striking characteristics. As well might any unbelieving 
sinner claim to be one of the faithful — one of the elect even — barely because 
he was born somewhere within the limits of Christendom. And just as well 
might the Jacobins, who " decreed God out of his Universe," have dubbed their 
club a " Christian association," because they were born on Christian soil. The 
genuine disciples of " True Americanism," like the genuine followers of the 
Cross, are those whose hearts are warmed and fired — purified, elevated and en- 
nobled — by those principles, doctrines and precepts which characterize their 
respective systems. It is for this reason that a Kamschatkan, a Britton, a Jew, 
or a Hindoo, can be as good a Christian as any one born on " Calvary's brow," 
or where the " Sermon on the Mount" was preached! And for the same reason 
an Irishman, a Frenchman, a German or Ilussian, can be as thoroughly " Ame- 
rican" as if he had been born within the walls of the old Independence Hall it- 
self. Which was the " true American," Arnold or Hamilton ? The one was a 
native and the other was an adopted son. But to return. W^hat do our Geor- 
gia friends intend to do ? Is it not time that they had shown their hand ? Do 
they intend to abandon the Georgia Platform, and go over " horse, foot and 
dragoons" into a political alliance with Trumbull, Durkee, W^ilson & Co ? Is 
this the course marked out for themselves by any of the gallant old Whigs of 
the 7th and 8th Congressional Districts? I trust not, I hope not. 



320 

But if they do not intend thus to commit themselves, is it not time to take a 
reckoning and see whither they are drifting? When "the blind lead the 
blind" where is the hope of safety ? I have been cited to the resolution which, 
it is said, the late Know Nothing Convention passed in Macon. This, it seems, 
is the only thing that the GOO delegates could bring forth after a two days 
"labor" — and of it we may well say, ^^ Mantes parturient et ridiculus mus 
Qiascitur" — " The mountains have been in labor and a ridiculous mouse is born." 
It simply aiSrnis, most meekly and submissively, what no man South of Mason 
and Dixon's line for the last thirty-five years would have ventured to deny, 
without justly subjecting himself to the charge of iucivism — that is, that " Con- 
gress has no constitutional power to intervene by excluding a new State apply- 
ing for admission into the Union, upon the ground that the constitution of such 
State recognizes slavery." This is the whole life and soul of it, unless we ex- 
cept the secret blade of Joab which it bears towards Kansas and Nebraska, con- 
cealed under a garb. 

It is well known to all who are informed, that in the organic law of these 
territories the right of voting, while they remain territories, was given to all 
who had filed a declaration of intention to become citizens. This was in strict 
compliance with the usual practice of the Government in organizing Territories; 
and under this provision that class of persons are now entitled to vote. Kan- 
sas, in two elections under this law has shown that an overwhelming majority 
of her people are in favor of slavery, notwithstanding the Executive influence 
of the Frcesoil Governor (Reed) whom Mr. Pierce sent out there to prevent it; 
but whom the people have lately driven, as they ought to have done from the 
country. Now, then, when Kansas applies for admission as a Slave State, as 
she doubtless will, a Southern " Know Nothing," under this llesolution, can 
unite with his worthy brethren at the North, in voting against it upon the 
ground that some have voted for a Constitution recognizing slavery, who had 
not been "naturalized," but had only declared their intention. For this Reso- 
lution in its very heart and core, declares that the right to establish Slave insti- 
tutions "in the organization of the State Governments, belongs to the native 
and naturalized citizens," excluding those who have only declared their inten- 
tions. A more insidious attack, was never made upon the principles of the 
Kansas and Nebraska Bill. And is this to be the plank on which Northern and 
Southern " Know Nothings" are to stand in the rejection of Kansas. But to 
the other and main objection, why did it stop with a simple denial of the power 
of Congress to reject a State on account of slavery ? Particularly when it had 
opened the door for the rejection of Kansas on other grounds by way of pre- 
text ? Why did it not plant itself upon the principles of the Georgia Resolu- 
tions of 1850, and say what ought to be done in case of the rejection of a State 
by Congress because of slavery? So far from this it does not even affirm that 
such rejection by their " worthy brethren" of the North would be sufficient 
cause for severing their party affiliation with them for it ? 

Again I would say, not only to the old Whigs of the 7th and 8th Congressional 
Districts, but to all true Georgians, whether Whigs or Democrats, Union men 
or Fire-Eaters, whither you are drifting ? Will you not pause and reflect ? Are 
we about to witness in this insane cry against Foreigners and Catholics a fulfil- 
ment of the ancient Latin Proverb. " Quern Deus inilt jiej-dire prius dementat !" 
" When the gods intend to destroy they first make mad ?" The times are in- 
deed portentous of evil. The political horizon is shrouded in darkness. No 
man knows whom he meets, whether he be friend or foe, except those who have 
the dim glare of the covered light which their secret signs impart. And how 
long this will be a protection even to them, is by no means certain. They have 
already made truth and veracity almost a by-word and a reproach. When truth 
loses caste with any people — is no longer considered as a virtue — and its daily 
and hourly violation are looked upon with no concern but a jeer or laugh, it re- 



321 

quires very little forecast to see what will very soon be the character of that 
people. But, sir, come what may, I shall pursue a course which sense of duty 
demands of me. While I hope for the best, I shall be prepared for the worst; 
and if the worst comes, with my fellow citizens, bear with patience my part of 
the common ills. They will afi'ect me quite as little as any other citizen, for 1 
hajfe but little at stake ; and so far as my public position and character are 
concerned, I shall enjoy that consolation which is to be derived from a precept 
taught me in early life, and which I shall ever cherish and treasure, whatever 
fortune betide me. 

"But if, on life's uncertain main, 
Mishap shall mar thy sail, 
If, faithful, firm and true in vain, 
Woe, want, and exile thou sustain, 
Spend not a sigh on fortune changed." 

Yours, most respectfully, 

A. II. STEPHENS. 
Col. T. W. Thomas, Elberton, Ga. 



From the Richmond Examiner, May 1, 1855. 
KNOW NOTHING HUMBUGS EXAMINED AND EXPLODED. 

The present canvass has been prodigiously fruitful in all sorts of Roorbacks, 
humbugs, misrepresentations and even downright falsehoods. The whole land 
teems with garbled extracts, apochryphal pamphlets, Munchausen paragraphs, 
and statements of the most transparent and egregious absurdity. To crush 
this prolific brood, would require the labors of a dozen regiments of men, like 
the hero of the Augean stables. We propose examining, at this time, three 
of the most current and common place, which we read every day in our ex- 
changes. 

, When a Democratic editor or newspaper points to the identity of the Know 
Nothing and the old Federal parties, as far as their common hostility to foreicra. 
immigration is concerned, he is invariably told that, although the objections to 
immigration fifty years ago were absurd, yet that the causes which made immi- 
gration desirable have ceased, the land has inhabitants enough, and that we 
should keep the domain for our children. ^Vithout stopping to point out, for 
the fiftieth time, that the repeal of the naturalizations laws will, in no manner 
diminish or affect immigration, let us see whether our landed estate is already 
filling up too rapidly. 

The census of 1850 furnishes us with the following facts, which effectually 
demonstrate the absurdity of this argument of the Know Nothings : 

Area of the United States, 3,306,865 of square miles or 2,116,383,600. 
acres. 

Number of acres in farms, 293,560,614 

Number of acres improved, 113,032,614 

« " unimproved, 180,528,000' 



Total in farms, as above, 293,560,614 

It has therefore required, from this official statement, 320 years to bring 
113,032,614 acres under cultivation, and we have yet left the small number of 
two billions three millions of unimproved lands. We are therefore certainly not 
21 



322 

in Imminent peril of our dense population covering our limited possessions two 
or three layers deep, and the excess slipping off into the Atlantic and the Paci- 
fic oceans. The absurdity of this humbug of Knov? Nothingism might be ren- 
dered still more glaring by a calculation, demonstrating how greatly the two 
billions of unimproved acres, might be made to add to our national wealth, by 
cultivation and population; but the good sense of our readers will render suth 
un argument unnecessary. 

II. 

The second humbug maintains that immigration has incrcnsed the pauperism 
of this country, and that New York and the New England States are taxed to 
support the paupers of Europe. The simple fact that immigration profitably 
employs a large portion of the marine of the free States, renders their railroads 
and canals valuable, and enriches thousands who, in the shape of boarding 
house keepers, agents, runners, and store keepers, prey upon the immigrants af- 
ter their long sea voyages, would be a sufficient refutation of this assertion. 
But there is still more conclusive evidence. The German emigrants alone 
bring into this country annually, it has been estimated, 11,000,000 of dollars 
in gold and silver. The commissioners of emigration for the State of New 
York so state. But the enemies of immigration, pinned to the wall by this 
fact, say the Irish paupers, not the Dutch, arc the rascals who are devouring 
the substance of New York and New England. 

Here, again, stubborn and unquestionable facts nail the falsehood to the 
counter. The following letter, from the President of the Irish Emigration So- 
ciety of New York, eftectually spikes that gun : 

Office Irish Emigration Society, | 
New York City, Jan. 4, 1855. j 

Dear Sir : — In reply to yours of the 1st instant, addressed to the lamented 
president of the Irish Emigrant Society, lately deceased, relative to the receipt 
and disbursement of the funds received and disbursed on account of emigrants 
arriving at this port, I bog leave to state — 

That in May, 1847, the State Legislature organized the commissioners of 
emigration, and passed laws requiring that for each alien passenger landed at 
this port the owners and consignees of the vessel bringing them should pay to 
the commissioners of emigration — first, $1 per head, with 50 cents each for hos- 
pital tax, to support the Quarantine Hospital, which latter was decided to be 
illegal and was abolished ; then it was increased to $1 50, and at the last ses- 
sion it was further increased to $2, (which tax is included by the owners and 
masters of vessels in the passage money,) and giving the commissioners authori- 
ty to disburse all such moneys received by them, for care and support of all emi- 
grants chargeable to them, and to every city, town, or county in the State, for 
a period of five years from the date of their arrival at this port. 

The amounts received by the commissioners of emigration and disbursed by 
them for the support of emigrants, since their creation in May, 1847 are as 
follows : 

In 1847, .... 198,293 00 

1848, .... 311,002 38 

1849, .... 315,876 16 

1850, - • ... 358,010 36 

1851, .... 469,538 27 

1852, .... 555,911 96 

1853, .... 571,651 92 

1854, .... 688,802 98 

$3,464,187 03 



323 

Whicb have been all disbursed, less the amount of $G4,000 now on hand, 
for the care, maintenance, and support of emigrants arriving at this port, and 
chargeable iu the various counties of this State, and in forwarding them to 
their friends and to places where they may get employment. 

In reply to your second question, I beg leave to inform you, that since the 
creation of the commissioners of emigration, the city authorities have paid no 
money on account of alien passengers arriving at this port, nor has the city 
incurred any expense for their support j on the other hand, the commissioners 
have paid since May, 1847, to the various public institutions in this city, for 
the care of such emigrants, chargeable to them, as they could not take care of 
in their own institutions, such as lunatics blind, deaf and dumb persons, $'J3,- 
490. 

With great respect, yours truly, 

AND. CAPtRIGAX, 
President Irish Emigrant Society. 

Really, the President of the Emigration Society is too cruel. lie proves 
that a tax laid upon the immigrants more than pays all their expenses, that 
there is now on hand a surplus of G4,000 dollars, and that there has been paid 
to the charitable institutions of the State of New York, for their disinterested 
care and support of the " pauper Irishmen," the sum of 93,500 dollars. 

This then is a truthful picture of Irish pauperism, and New York philan- 
thropy. How stands the matter in the slave States ? Are we taxed for the 
support of the German and Irish pauper immigrants? Baltimore is the port, 
at which we suppose nine-tenths of the European paupers are landed. The 
following is a letter from the President of the Maryland Emigration Society : 

Baltimore, Jan. 3, 1855. 

Dear Sir : — I received yesterday your favor of the '29th ult., asking informa- 
tion about the amount of head-money paid by emigrant passengers and its ap- 
plication. In reply, I can only give you the aniounts collected, which have 
been as follows : 

In 1850, - - - . 10,015 11 

1851, .... 12,505 20 

1852, .... 20,128 71 

1853, .... 17^185 77 

being at the rate of ^l 50 for each passenger. A portion of these sums — say 
two-fifths, or sixty cents per head — has been annually paid over to the several 
beneficial societies, and the German Society has been the recipient of some five 
or six thousand dollars per annum. 

I am not aware that our city authorities have been put to any expense on ac- 
count of emigrants. There is no special provision made for them, and it is left 
to the German, Hibernian, St. Andrews, and other charitable s"ocieties, to as- 
sist the sick and indigent. 

•- The balance of the head-money, with the exception of trifling donations in 
some instances made to Dutch passengers, is applied towards the support of 
the Baltimore city and county almshouse. 

I have not yet ascertained the exact number of passengers which arrived at 
this port during last year; it has been somewhat greater than during the pre- 
ceding year, and the collections will probably reach $20,000. 

It will afford me pleasure to give you any further information on the the 
subject of emigration at my command ; and I remain, with sincere regards, 

Your obedient servant, 

A. SCHUMACHER. 



324 

Far from being a tax upon the people of the slaveholding State of Mary- 
land, we find that a large part of this '' head money," or tax upon the immi- 
grants, is actually applied " towards the support of the Baltimore city and 
county almshouse," tiie " foreign paupers" furnishing their mite towards the 
support of the indigent native Americans. 

III. 

The third Roorback and humbug of the Know Nothings, is " that the influx 
of foreigners depreciates the price of labor." This is the rankest and most 
transparent nonsense which we have yet heard, even from the Order which has 
inaugurated misrepresentation as one of their cardinal virtues. The price of 
labor is, like everything else that can be bought or hired, regulated by the de- 
mand for it. If immigration did not open new resources by bringing immense 
tracts of land under cultivation, by opening roads for the exchange of commo- 
dities between the various portions of the country, and by an increased home 
consumption, it would necessarily come to pass, that a constant influx of foreign 
mechanics and laborers would soon glut the market and depreciate the price of 
labor. 

But the fact is, that the wages of labor have increased more rapidly, during 
the last seven years, than they have ever done, and yet, during the last seven 
years, immigration has also more rapidly increased than at any subsequent period 
of our history as a nation. We shall not insult the intelligence of our readers by 
elaborating the argument which this fact will prove to every sensible man. 



From the Richmond Examiner, May 15, 1855. 

EQUAL RIGHTS AND EQUAL LAWS. 

Equal Rights and Equal Laws — these things have ever been the dearest to 
the heart of the race whose descendants we are. In all eras, under all climates, 
in every alteration of society, that key-note recurs in the grand symphony of 
its utterance and action. Equal Rights and Equal Laws ! These words sum 
nr) the political system of the American States and the American people. To 
them they represent all things that are good in government. They have fought 
for them, and toiled for them, and paid for them in money and in blood ; till 
they thought the principles those words express were so won to their possession, 
so wrought into their flesh, so mingled with the life stream that they were send- 
ing down to after ages, that all the waters of the multitudinous seas would never 
wash them out, nor all the drowsy syrups of the East erase them from the 
memory of any posterity of theirs. But that heroic hope was only a glorious, 
noble dream. Their children have already forgotten the Declaration of Rights 
which do pertain unto the people of Virginia, and unto their posterity. 

As the white cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night were insufficient to 
assure the wanderers in the desert of the presence in their midst of the God of 
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and they must needs make a golden calf to worship 
in his stead, and choose other leaders than the Lord's anointed ; so are we dis- 
carding the maxims of our fathers which have brought the Republic to its pre- 
sent power, as worn out trumpery unsuited to its now exalted estate, and adop- 
ting a new class of dogmas, at war with the example of our ancestors, substitu- 
tino' narrow counsels for noble and exalting sentiments, strife for harmony, in- 
tolerance for charity, privilege for equ:ility, birth for merit, hypocrisy for faith, 
and making the name American instead of a symbol of all that is generous, 
brave, hospitable, self-reliant, enterprising, excellent, elevated, and free in con- 



325 

science, in effort, in enterprise, in aspiration, in ambition, in the person and in 
tbe soul — a confined idea, limited between narrow latitudes and longitudes, sy- 
nonymous with Ishmaelite and cur, and expressive only of jealousy, selfishness, 
ill-nature, inhospitality, meanness of instinct and narrowness of soul. 

And that which makes the blood of the patriot boil wit.h the fiercer indigna- 
tion in contemplating the conduct of the advocates of this total change in the 
genius and spirit of our institutions, is to see the*m hypocritically attempting to 
impose the belief upon the ignorant and simple, that their new-fangled dogmas 
have the sanction of the founders of the Republic. 

Equal Rights and Equal Laws for all free citizens, was the cardinal maxmi 
and fundamental principle ruling the whole conduct of the framers of our in- 
stitutions. They prescribed no test of religious faith as a qualification for of- 
fice or citizenship. They expressly forbade that so proscriptive, so unjust, so 
insulting a test should ever be applied to the freemen of our country. Although 
the Republic was then weak and the Pope was strong, and although taunted by 
the Arnolds of thoac days to measures of intolerance, they refused to require 
an oath purging even the Catholic conscience of its imputed transcendental alle- 
giance to its spiritual Ruler. They left these measures of proscription to be 
taken by new light statesmen of the present hour — when ours has become the 
strongest power on earth, and the Pope the weakest potentate — when Protes- 
tantism has come to number in proselytes and creeds as the sands of the sea, 
and, growing up like the spreading oak, is stretching out its limbs to the four 
■winds of heaven, and like the banyan tree of India, is reaching forth its arms, 
and striking down its roots into all regions of the earth. They left the people 
the option to choose from among the members of all the different religious per- 
suasions, whomsoever themselves and not unequal laws should adjudge "most 
honest, most capable and most faithful to the Constitution." They left it to 
modern bigots, by demagogue oaths and unequal laws, to cut the people off 
from one entire religious persuasion in their elections of public servants ; and 
to prescribe a rule and enforce an oath, which, if Brigham Young and Judge 
Taney were rival candidates for ofi&ce, would command them — the people — 
to vote for the polygamist, the outlaw, the impostor, the whoremonger, the 
adulterer, the brute'aud the infidel, rather than for the man — darum venerabile 
iiomcn gtntihus, et mnltum iwatrse quod prodcrat urhi.. 

The same great principle of equal rights and equal laws for free citizens was 
carried by our fathers into their welcome to the emigrant. ^ They required a 
probationary residence of the foi-eigner as requisite to the attainment of citizen- 
ship, it is true ; but, once a citizen, they made the emigrant a peer of the 
proudest native in respect of all the privileges and franchises of the citizen. 
True it was, that our fiithers, in consideration of the tender years of the Re- 
public, its infancy and weakness, the power of hostile governments whose ty- 
ranny it had escaped by miracle, the jealousy with which the monarchies abroad 
regarded our free institutions, and the danger of insidious efforts from that 
quarter to undermine our liberties unawares to our people while few and feeble, 
ordained that the Federal executive and some of the State executives should be 
native male citizens. But there they stopped, and that was the single excep- 
tion which they engrafted upon that wonderful system of legislation, which they 
planted upon the foundation stone of Equal Laws and Equal Rights. With 
that single exception, they left the unrestricted choice of their public servants 
to the people — to the judgment, the discernment, the discrimination, the pa- 
triotism, the justice, the WILL of the people. Proceeding upon the great 
American maxim, of the capacity of the people for self-government, they did 
not essay to prescribe to them from what class of citizens they should select 
their servants, or by what accidents of birth or privilege they should restrict 
their choice. They left it to the innovating demagogue§ of the present day to 
deny the capacity of the people for self-government, and to hamper the POPU- 



326 

LATl WILL and paralj'ze tbe elective franchise by unequal laws and extra" 
judicial oaths, under which, if the felon Native American, E. Z. C. Judson» 
and that great and generous foreigner, tbe Marquis LaFajette, were rival candi- 
dates for oiBce, the people would be compelled, in tbe exercise of the highest 
function of the American freeman, to exalt the convict and proscribe the hero — 
under which base laws and oaths restricting the people in the exercise of tbe 
elective franchise, if all the foreigners wafted by ship loads to our shores were 
Gallatins and DeKalbs, and all our natives were Garrisons, Phillipses and Burns 
rescuers and rioters, they — the people — would be compelled to hurl the Galla- 
tins from power and substitute an infamous litter of Wilsons, Hisses and Fol- 
soms in their places. Yes, our fathers left it to the innovators of the present 
evil hour, to deny to the people the liberty of choosing their public servants 
according to their judgment, patriotism and WILL, and, distrusting the great, 
primary American doctrine — the capacity of the people for self-government — 
to fetter the people's judgments, their wishes and their choice with unequal laws 
and extra-judicial oaths. 

In their desperation, these innovators are now vouching, at this late hour of 
tbe Virginia canvass, and as a last recourse to support a failing cause, certain 
resolutions of the Virginia General Assembly of 1799, proposing to exclude 
foreign-born persons, thereafter to come into the country, from the two houses 
of Congress and the Executive and Judicial offices of the federal government, 
running in these words : 

" The general assembly, nevertheless, concurring in opinion with the legisla- 
ture of Massachuset?, that every constitutional barrier should be opposed to the 
introduction of foreign influence into our national councils : 

Resolved, That the constitution ought to be so amended, that no foreigner 
who shall not have acquired rights under tbe constitution and laws at the time 
of making this amendment, shall thereafter be eligible to the office of senator 
or representative in tbe Congress of the United States, nor to any office in the 
judiciary or executive departments. 

Agreed to by the Senate, January 16, 1799." 

The resolution was adopted by that immortal body, just after their memora- 
ble contest over the Alien and Sedition laws, and was doubtless offered by the 
illustrious Virginians of that day, in the generosity of victors to the vanquished, 
as a testimonial of a spirit of compromise and concession on their part toward.s 
a fallen adversary after bis ignominious defeat. The resolution proposed to 
extend the exception already mentioned in respect to the presidency of the 
Union and Governorship of some of the States — an exception to the great 
American doctrine of equal laws and equal rights — to the subordinate offices of 
the federal Executive, and to the federal Judiciary and the federal Legislature. 
It was a concession oq the part of those illustrious men to the advocates of the 
Alien and Sedition laws, which their own after conduct proves that they them- 
selves considered unwise and unnecessary. They themselves condemned it as a 
temporary indiscretion, and left it to sink into sudden and incontinent oblivion. 
The resolution has slept the sleep of death upon the statute book ever since. 
It is as obsolete as its cotemporary measures of National Bank and Protective 
Tariff; and was buried still-born by the very statesmen who are now appealed 
to as its authors. 

But mark the disingenuousness of this effort of the latter day Know Noth- 
ings to array this resolution against the doctrine of equal rights and equal laws, 
and to set the illustrious statesmen of '98 and '99 at war with themselves. 
The resolutions of the Massachusetts Know Nothing Legislature of '99, to 
which this Virginia resolution responded; had invited those statesmen to do a mean 



327 

thing, an unjust thing, an infamous thing — had invited them to exclude foreign 
born citizens, already naturalized, and already entitled under the Constitution 
as it was, and the laws as thoy stood upon the statute book, fiom an equal par- 
ticipation in the offices, privileges and franchises of the country. In sliort, the 
Massachusetts Legislature of that day recommended the proscriptive principle 
which is iDCorporated in the following ariicle of the Know Nothing creed : 

" You, of your own free will and accord, in the presence of Almighty God 
and these witnessess, your right hand resting on this Holy Bible and Cross, 
and your left hand raised toward Heaven, in token of sincerity, do solemnly 
promise and swear that you will not vote, nor give your influence, for any man 
for any office in the gift of the people unless he be an American born citizen, 
in favor of Americans ruling America." 

— an oath which cuts at the very roots of those solemn guarantees of the Con- 
stitution which have already given to the alien born citizen heretofore natural- 
ized, the free, unrestricted benefit of the same equal laws and equal rights 
which is enjoyed by the native citizen — an oath retrospective in its operation, 
ex j)oU facto in its disfranchisements, violative of vested rights, and repudiatory 
of the long standing compact between our country on the one hand, and the 
domiciliated emigrant on the other, who has sought its shor-es under the allure- 
ment of those guarantees of equality and hospitality which shone forth from 
the Constitution in letters of gold, so refulgent as to have tempted him to for- 
sake home and kindred, to have forsworn sovereign and allegiance, and to have 
sought a countrj' then offering citizenship and equality, but now proposing to 
degrade him into an exile and a Helot. 

That was the proposition of the Massachusetts Legislature to the illustrious 
Virginians of '99 ; and now mark the noble language in which they replied, 
and ponder the resolution which it has suited the Know Nothings to suppress, 
and which precedes the one printed above, on which they rely to sustain their 
measures of proscription and intolerance : 

'* The general assembly of Virginia, considering that the privation of perso- 
nal rights solemnly sanctioned by the Constitution of the United States, is 
arbitrary and unjust; that the right of election to office, is one of the most 
important secured thereby to the citizen ; and that it ought not to be destroyed 
or impaired, especially by regulations having a retrospective operation : 

Therefore, Resolved, That the proposition from the legislature of the State 
of Massachusetts, having for its object the exclusion of certain citizens from 
their eligibility to offices, which [eligibility] they now actually possess, and the 
exclusion of other persons who may become possessed thereof upon the perfor- 
mance of certain conditions held out to them by existing laws; [meaning the 
naturalization laws] — thus, by a retrospective regulation, improper in itself, and 
inconsistent with the spirit of all our civil institutions, infringing the rights of 
persons solemnly guaranteed by the constitution and laws — is arbitrary and 
unjust; and, that it ought not to receive the approbation of the general as- 
sembly." 

Then follow the resolutions already quoted. Let the Know Nothings read 
these passages and hang their heads for shame, that they ever appealed to the 
authority of the Virginia statesmen of 1799 to sustain their schemes of pro- 
scription. 



32^ 



From the Washia''ton Union. 



VIOLENCE THE NATURAL CONSEQUENCE OF THE KNOW 
NOTHING ORGANIZATION AND DOCTRINES. 

The public press has recently been filled with the gross and sickening details 
of riot and crime in our cities and towns, growing out of the new Know Noth- 
ing organization and the spirit its movemeuta have provoked. It has been found 
that even in this country, which proudly boasts that the law of the lund is su- 
preme and acquiesced in by all, the constituted authorities are found incompe- 
tent or unwilling to repress disorder and protect from violence the lives and pro- 
perty of the citizens. We question much whether, during the last year, under 
the autrocrat of Russia, or him of France, more frequent or more flagrant out- 
rages upon the rights of personal liberty and property have taken phice than 
those who have brought the blush of shame to the check of every true Ameri- 
can citizen. Private houses are given to the flames, churches are destroyed, 
murder stalks boldly forth, nnrepressed and unpunished ; whilst the authors of 
these outrages, not satisfied with such achievements, find ample time for attack- 
ing the peaceful assemblages of their opponents, and for even blackening the 
character of those native Americans who will not join with them in the cry, 
that every Catholic woman who goes to confession is lewd, every priest a sworn 
foe to our liberties, and every Roman Catholic an incipient traitor to the con- 
stitution. / 

There is at least one fortunate feature in all this spectacle of calumny and 
crime. It is leading men everywhere to reflect upon the causes and progress of 
these moral heresies, and to bestir themselves to the task of their removal. 
The calm and reflecting of all parties are beginning to appreciate the fact that 
our free institutions, won by the blood of our fathers, are only to be preserved 
by our own constancy, zeal, and vigilance. It is not enough to chant pa3ans to 
the names of Washington, Patrick Henry, and Jefferson, but we must bring 
home their teachings to the popular heart, and by the example of their tolerant 
and liberal doctrines shame those to silence who have either forgotten or re- 
pudiated the principles ingrafted upon our constitution by those illustrious pa- 
triots. 

The connexion between the doctrines of the Know Nothing or native Ameri- 
can party, and the recent developments of crime and outrage, is too obvious to 
be overlooked. What is " Know Nothingisra" but the turning of the bad pas- 
sions of our fallen nature into a particular direction ? The evil feelings of 
malice and hate, and intolerance to our opponents, to which humanity is but 
too prone, have been industriously stimulated and concentrated upon the adhe- 
rents of a particular faith, and upon the helpless and unfortunate emigrant, 
who, fleeing from tyranny and thanking God that his feet have at last touched 
the soil of freedom, finds to his dismay that the spirit of persecution is before 
as well as behind him, and meets with a scourge where he hoped for an asylum. 
And this is republican hospitality ! A constitution and laws which offer heart 
and hand to the emigrant and the Roman Catholic, but a secret organization as- 
piring to override both constitution and laws, which substitutes for the olive 
branch of peace the sword and dagger of relentless bigotry ! When men, in- 
stead of being taught to feel their own sins, to amend their own lives and purify 
their own conduct, are, on the contrary, daily and hourly admonished by their 
leaders that there is a class of their neighbors whose faith is so full of pernicious 
error, and yet so rapidly increasing, and that it must be put down, not by argu- 
ment, by the light of holy example, or by the generous rivalry of deeds of 
charity and mercy, but by denying to the adherents of these presumed heresies 
all posts of trust and honorable preferment — thus making them the only pariahs, 



329 

or outcasts, in a land of equality — is it strange that tlio growth of malice and 
bate ffhouM be rapid, and (iuickly bring forth its appropriate fruit of riot, sedi- 
tion, calumny, and murder ? This lesson, which all history teaches us, was fa- 
miliar to our forefathers, who wisely ingrafted its consequence of religious 
toleration upon the constitution; but we hive among us, it seems, a class for 
whom history affords no warnings for toleration, but only precedent for revenge 
and persecution, and who use daily for their purposes the names of our revolu- 
tionary patriots whilst they studiously disregard their precepts. 

There is another reason why these conse(|uences should ensue. The Know 
Nothing organization is a secret one. It repudiates any appeal to argument or 
public discussion, but aims to obtain its proselytes by private appeals and 
cajolery, and to compass its objects by secret and irresponsible machinery. Is 
it wonderful, therefore, that those men, when met with the calm voice of reason, 
should fly to passionate invective to drown the voice of conscience, that they 
should interrupt by violence those public meetings and discussions, whose effects 
they so justly fear as entirely to discard them from their plan of operations, or 
that they should finally, when all other means have failed, resort to the pistol 
and the knife ? , 

It will be obvious, too, that the weapons of violence arc much more readily 
and conveniently handled by them than those of logic and argument. It may 
take a man a moi^th or more to familiarize himself with the writings of our 
fathers and the principles of the constitution, and his studies may even then 
add but little to his Know Nothing zeal; but the sorriest and simplest of the 
" order" can readily handle a pistol or a bludgeon. A Know Nothing may 
argue with an Irish Catholic by the hour, and fail to convince him that he is an 
idolater or a traitor, and therefore a fit subject for proscription ; but a resort to 
the knife settles the question speedily for all practical purposes, and your dead 
Irishman will hardly disturb by his replies the convictions of his antagonist, so 
pointedly and eloquently expressed. Five hundred pistols may be fired, and as 
many Irishmen made to bite the dust in less time than it will take to produce 
a good argument in favor of religious proscription. The midnight lamp wasted 
in the vain and fruitless attempt to find in the writings of Washington and 
Jefferson a sanction for the establishment of a "religious test" for office, may 
be conveniently and fitly employed in firing the Irishman's house, where his 
wife and children find a miserable shelter from the elements, or in burning the 
edifice in which he offers that sacrifice of prayer and penitence whi<;h the Know 
Nothing bigot, kindly assuming the province of Deity, unhesitatingly rejects as 
hypocritical or idolatrous. It may cost them some pains to read the constitu- 
tion or the Grospel of Peace ? and is it singular that they shirk the disagreeable 
task for the easier one by far, to them, of reading the heart of man and pro- 
nouncing upon his motives and his integrity ? 

Men, too, are beginning to ask, where is all this violence and crime to end ? 
If the Catholic is to be attacked, who, indeed, will be safe? JMurder does not 
always draw nice dictinctions, and the demon of hate and religious bigotry, 
when one object is exhausted, readily conjures up another. The man or villain 
who, by setting fire to the houses of Irishmen, acquires a fondness for such 
glowing spectacles, will not always be content with such narrow limits for his 
taste, but will apply his principles and his torch to those who are guiltless of 
one drop of Milesian blood. It is, we doubt not, susceptible of demonstration 
that the house of an Episcopalian or a Methodist will burn as readily as that of 
an Irish Romanist, and we suspect that his blood will in the end be fully as ac- 
ceptable and sweet to many of those who are prominent in this work of hate. 
We will not inquire whether it is better to be a drunkard, or rowdy, or Know 
Nothing assassin, than an Irishman, or whether the man who rejects the Saviour 
and spurns the sacrifice of Jesus Christ (but who, despite his deism or atheism, 
finds a ready welcome in their "order") is more worthy of trust and con- 



330 

fidence than tbe Roman Catholic ; but surely we may be excused for turning to 
the Presbyterian, the Methodist, the Baptist, the Unitarian, and indeed every 
sectarian who may encourage this movement, and asking them this question : Is 
it so short a time since your faith has felt the iron heel of persecution that you 
are ready and eager to apply to others those practices of persecution and pros- 
cription of which your fathers in England and elsewhere so justly complained ? 
and if so, in what sense can you call yourselves followers of Him who said to 
you and to all men, " Do unto others as you xcould that tlicij should do unto you — 
this the second and f/7'eat covimayidment ?" 

A NATIVE PROTESTANT. 



From the Richmond Examiner, April 24, 1855. 

DUPLICITY Bi^TTER THAN NATIONALITY. 

Honesty is not the better policy in these days, if we take the successes of 
♦Know Nothingism as testing the rule. Ingenious Sara has adopted the tactics 
of the horse gangs, and as these wonderful travellers (on other men's animals) 
have a different name for every county they traverse, so Sam has a diiferent 
schedule of policy for every State in the Union. Already are seven programmes 
of his Basis Principles extant ; and as not half of Sam's tactics and principles 
are yet dragged out to light, it is fair to presume that the number of his Bases 
of Principles is at least thirty, the number of the States, and probably as many 
more as there are unorganized territories in the Union. 

In respect to Catholics, the policy of the " Traveller" is peculiarly charac- 
teristic. Beginning in Massachusetts, where Puritan bigotry is not relaxed in 
tension since the expulsion of Roger Williams, and the hanging of defenceless 
and toothless old maidens for "witchcraft," he carries on his persecutions for 
opinion's sake, openly and avowedly, by sending special committees, attended by 
courtezans and prostitutes, to spy out the secrets of private female schools, con- 
ducted by Catholic ladies. There is no nice distinction there between Catho- 
lic religion and Catholic politics. It is the genuine spirit of persecution of the 
old, cruel, shameless, barbaric type, of the Praise God Barebones era. It is 
not merely Catholic voters. Catholic officers, and Catholic politicians, that are 
the objects of Know Nothing hostility in Massachusetts, but Catholic women 
and children, old men and old ladies, old maids and young virgins. 

The whole American public have heard what Know Nothing legislators have 
done io the way of persecution in Massachusetts. Fancy the feelings of our 
countrymen abroad when the accounts from Boston shall reach them in Europe. 
But here is what a Boston Know Nothing editor says, and such is the language 
of the whole New England Know Nothing press : 

" The Nunnery, the Convent, and other monastic systems have had full swing 
in Sardinia. And this for generations — for ages. What has been the result ? 
These things : corrupt morals; debased public sentiment; violation of the most 
sacred laws ; destruction of virtue ; pollution of female virtue ; genecal decay 
of noble and refined sentiments ; sensuality ; profligacy ; vitiation of the social 
fabric. Much else. But these in chief. The people of Sardinia see this. 
They look back on centuries and see it. It is met with everywhere. The 
church is corrupt. Society is corrupt. Religion, morality, virtue, the true, the 
hallowed, the beautiful is corrupt. Hence the passage of a law of reform ; a 
law of suppression. It has come to this : Either these places must be abolished 
or corruption stalk unfettered over the land. The better cause has prevailed. 
Hitherto we have seen little to admire in Sardinia. It has little in history but 



331 

to blush and weep over. But an act has now risen which looms up like a Bunk- 
er Hill Mouumeut." 

Catholic schools " must be abolished." The convent-burning scenes of 
Charlestown must be re-enacted, and womnn and children must become again 
the victims of outrage from heroic, brutal, profane Sam, Apostle of Protestant- 
ism and Pharisee of 1855. Not Catholic schools only, but Catholic churches 
too must come down in New England ; for the few that were sacked and de- 
stroyed by Sara in 1854, under tlie instigation of Gavazzi, the foreigner, and_ 
the " Angel Gabriel," the other foreigner, will not appease the ferocity of the 
unwashed felon against Catholic martyrs of obstinate consciences. 

Yes, the latter half of the nineteenth century is witnessing a renewal of the 
persecutions of the dark ages ; and this "free" land of ours, consecrated so 
solemnly to liberty, is witnessing already the public violation by political par- 
ties aud loud-mouthed partizans, of the sacred liberty of conscience. 

As the demon of iutolcrancs progesses Southward, however, thanks to the 
good genius of Southern institutions, lie is compelled to disguise, by evft-y pos- 
sible artifice of duplicity, the loathsomeness of his purposes. In Virginia, he 
professes not to touch the conscience of the Catholic, but only his franchises. 
He does not play Paul Pry in Catholic schools, or burn to the ground Catholic 
churches; but he simply utters the exclamation, "Lord I thank thee that I 
am not as wicked as these bigoted Catholics ;" and appropriates the spoils of of- 
fice to himself. The Massachusetts basis principle is to burn Catholic churches 
and corporeally examine Catholic female teachers and pupils. The Virginia 
Basis Principle is to denounce Catholics as great political knaves, rifle them, 
in a sort of pick-pocket patriotism, of all the offices they hold, aud sing psalms 
of hallelujah to the Act of Toleration and the names of Washington and Jef- 
ferson. Occasionally, but very rarely, and thit only in remote districts, where 
wholesale lying is not apt to be found out in time to be exposed, they put forth 
such monstrous falsehood as the following, which we take from a Know Nothing 
document sent us from the county of Patrick. Munchausen the Second addresses 
his " fellow citizens of the county of Patrick, and all lovers of their country," 
in the following amusingly mendacious strain. We italicise the gems in this 
Cabinet of 

SAM'S specimen lies, designed to show his veneration for the VIRGI- 
NIA ACT OF RELIGIOUS TOLERATION. 

" It is often the case, fellow citizens, that these ruffianly Priests go to common 
free schools, taught by the charity of some good Protestant ladies for the pur- 
pose of educating the poor, and break it up 6// coirhidiiuj all its pupils. The 
daughter of an old magistrate, near a town called Ballinrobo, collected a school 
in which she taught the children of the poor. In the goodness of her heart, 
she took pity upon the poor ignorant children of the neighborhood, and desired 
to learn them to read, that they might peruse the word of God. The Priest, 
of the Parish entered the school house one day, and asked if the children were 
taught to read with the view of reading the Bible. On being informed that 
they were, he whipped every child out of the house. He denounced from the 
altar a school house uoder the care of the wife of the sherifi" of Galway, and 
whipped a respectable old man for permitting his children to go it. Now, fel- 
low citizens, is all this sober truth, or is it enormous fiction? It is possible 
that such outrages can be suffered to exist in a civilized community ? Yes, fel- 
low citizens, they do exist in their startling and hideous reality, and were it not 
for fear of s^pinning this address out to a too great length, I could tell you of 
wrongs that these Bible-hating Priests do, of crimes they commit, and of mise- 
ry they entail upon every people over whom they have control, that would make 



332 

your hair rise on your head. And the ahirming fact stares us in the fice, that 
the despots and tyrants of Europe are in league with the Roman Catholics 
annually to send over to this country hundreds and thousands of their pau- 
pers, criminals and pei'sons of abandoned characters, that our country may 
be overrun by foreigners and Roman Catholics, that the government may be 
overthrown, and that the Roman Catholic religion may become the established 
religion of the United States. When these things shall come to pass, 
(and may God in his mercy forever forbid it,) then all Baptists, Prcsbj'te- 
"tians, Methodists, and all other Protestant denominations will be persecuted 
and hunted down like the beasts of the forest, for every Roman Catholic Priest 
and Bishop regards them as heretics, and tlui/ talce an oath-to per&ecate hij Jire 
and sword all heretics and enemies of their church." 

Beautiful language is this for the latitude of Virginia, and for the latter half 
of the XlXth century ! 

Suchiris the spirit of Know Nothingism towards Catholics where those people 
are few and weak ; and it would naturally be inferred, from the intemperate 
hostility to Catholics of these suddenly enlisted champions of Protestantism, 
that where their party did come in contact with the hated church, in States 
where it was really formidable by its numbers and political influence, and 
where, if all they charge in Massachusetts and Virginia be true, they could 
carry on their system of persecution and intolerance to some good purpose, the 
order would be especially savage and bloody mioded with the Catholics. For, 
if the country does really need to be cleared of the Catholic faith, and if the 
safety of the country really reciuires that its offices should be taken out of the hands 
of Catholics, the work of reformation should go on hottest where Catholics are 
most formidable, and where they participate most largely in the administration 
of public affairs. Yet, in Louisiana, where the Catholics do muster in force, 
and where there is important work for the Know Nothings, that valiant Order 
turn up advocates in fact of religious toleration, and are even more tolerant of 
the proscribed religion than the Democratic party itself. In the Basis Princi- 
ples of the Order for the southern and much the larger portion of that State, 
there is no article denouncing the Catholic Church, and the councils are actual- 
ly talking of nominating a Roman Catholic gentleman for the office of Gover- 
nor. 

Under that convenient article in their secret ritual, authorizing them to so con- 
struct their constitutions as to exempt Catholic men, WIVES and MOTHERS 
from their brutal system of proscription, where the INTEREST of the Order 
demands such exemption, they have consulted discretion rather than valor, and 
resolved to embrace Catholics as brethren in the bonds of patriotism and equals 
in the qualifications for office. Here is the constitutional provision of the Or- 
der on this subject of which they have availed themselves in Louisiana : 

" He (a member) must be a native born citizen ; a Protestant born of Pro* 
testant parents; reared under Protestant influence, and not united in marriage 
with a Roman Catholic : Provided, nevertheless, that, in this last respect, the 
State, District or Territorial Council shall be authorized to so construct their 
respective constitutions as shall best promote the American cause in their seve- 
ral jurisdictions ; and provided, moreover, that no member who may have a Ro- 
man Catholic wife shall be eligible to any office in the Order." 

We have received the following letter from the editor of one of the most in- 
fluential, able and respectable journals of the Southern country, which shows 
how the double faced party has profited, in the State of Louisiana, by this con- 
venient article in their constitution : 



333 



THE KNOW NOTHINGS HOIST THE WHITE FLAG WHERE THE CATHOLICS MUS- 
TER IN FORCE. 

New Orleans, April IGth, 1854. 

Dear Sir : — 

Your letter of tlie 7th inptant, addressed to Mr. , was 

handed by liim to me, with a request that I would endeavor to procure such re- 
liable information as would enable me to answer it for him. 

There is not the slightest doubt that, in the lower portion of the State of 
Louisiana, including this city and the Parishes which are mostly peopled by 
the so-called Creoles, there is no clause in the obligations of the members of 
the Know Nothing Order proscribing the Catholic religion or its followers on 
account of their religious belief. I knew this for months past, having received 
positive assurances from acquaintances who avowed their connection with the 
Order. 

But, in order to " make assurance double sure," I resolved that I would ap- 
peal to some of the recognized leaders of the Order among us, and obtain 
from them such confirmatory information as they might be willing to afford 
me. 

One gentleman, who is widely known throughout the State for his former zeal 
in Native Americanism and his present activity in the Know Nothing cause, 
and whose name has been brought forward prominently as the candidate for 
Governor of the vState, on their ticket, told me, in answer to my question as to the 
religious test, that here the members did not take any such obligation ; that, in 
order to obtain the support of the Whig Creoles, who were generally Catholics, 
it had been from the tirst excluded, except in so far that a " confessing Catho- 
lic" was not admitted to the Order; but that, for some months past, even that 
question had not been put to the applicant; all that was required being that he 
should be in favor of the policy of the Order as to foreigners and the Naturali- 
zation laws. When I stated to him that some of the presses in the northern 
portion of the State which advocated the Order, had permitted attacks on the 
Catholic religion and the rights of its professors, he replied that some of the 
country lodges had gone to work and organized themselves without having first 
properly informed themselves of the true objects of the movement in regard to 
religion; but that at present, means were being taken to procure uniformity and 
harmony in the work and aims of the lodges throughout the State, and that it 
would be required of the country lodges to give up all pretensions to introduce 
any religious test into the obligations of their members. 

Another gentleman, who I had reason to know was one of the first to intro- 
duce the Order into this State, and who informed me that the lodge over which 
be presided contained over fifteen hundred members, confirmed fully what the 
other had said as to the absence of any religious test, especially against the 
Catholics, and said that on one occasion he had compelled a judge, in this city, 
who, in addressing his lodge, had attacked the Catholic religion, to resume his 
seat, as he would not permit any such violation of the real objects of their as- 
sociation as an attack on any man's religion. 

Both the gentlemen to whom I have referred, emphatically stated that if the 
Order in the North and West did not yield to the demand of the Louisiana 
members, to give up the obligation proscribing the followers of the Catholic or 
any other religion, the latter would be compelled to break off from them, and 
act independently. And both stated that this demand would be made at the 
first National Council of the Order. 

I have not thought it necessary to extend my inquires farther, as the highly 
respectable character of the gentleman who told me what I have above related. 



334 . 

and the feeling of absolute certainty whicb I felt as to the entire truth of what 
they stated, disposed me to thiuk that I could gain no additional information, 
on the points you mentioned, from others. 

I am, sir, respectfully, your obedient servant, 

JNO. H. CLAIBORNE. 
K. W. Hughes, Esq., Editor of the Examiner, Richmond, Ya. 



From the Richmond Examiner, April 17, 1855. 

FOREIGNERS AND THE SOUTH. 

We should fear the Greeks though bearing gifts. We should beware of the 
North, though approaching us in the name of nationality and friendship. Wc 
should distrust the wooden horse of Know Nothingism, with insidious Northern 
fanatics in its belly, though offered as a holocaust to restored peace and harmo- 
ny. We should eschew this Yankee scheme of politics, though proffering 
safety and protection to the South. Vie should neither touch nor handle the 
viper, though counterfeiting venomous hostility to its mother — though pretend- 
ing to bite and snap at Abolitionism. 

Why should the South join her bitter revilers in a hue and cry against fo- 
reigners '/ Fifty of the very New England clergymen who denounced her in- 
stitutions to Heaven and threatened Congress with the vengeance of Almighty 
God for meditating a constitutional law of justice to the South, are leaders of 
the infamous Blas.sachusetts Legislature in visiting persecution and outrage upon 
foreigners. Is it from such Know Nothings as these that slaveholders expect an 
effective warfare upon Abolitionism ? Are these a new spawn of " Northern 
men with Southern principles 1" 

Not long ago all Boston was up in arms against the federal authorities in an 
attempt to rescue a slave from his master. An Irish regiment of volunteer 
soldiers and Catholics were chiefly instrumental in vindicating the majesty of 
the law and restoring the slave to his Southern owner. A " whole souled and 
gallant" Irish lad bared his breast to the native American mob and poured out 
his life's blood in defence of the rights of the South. The Know Nothing Le- 
gislature of Abolition Massachusetts, with a malignity of vengeance which 
his'tory cannotparallel, has disbanded that Irish regiment and denied the privi- 
lege of citizenship to all foreigners, for the part they acted in the rescue of 
Burns. Is the South to lick the hand that smites her ? Is she to ally herself 
in a league of persecution and extermination with her enemies and revilers, 
against the little handful of persecuted strangers who dared to take her part at 
the expense of life and disfranchisement? Shame! eternal shame upon the 
craven men of the South who shall do so mean a thing ! Let us not take our 
politics from Massachusetts and the Know Nothing anathematizing clergy of 
her Legislature. Let us rather take it from the Bible, and treat the foreigner 
kindly and ho.spitably, obeying the command of that Book — " Be not forgetful 
to entertain strangers, (foreigners.) for thereby some have entertained angels 
ui^aAvares." 

'Why are Northern Abolitionists and Know Nothings persecuting and pro- 
scribing foreigners and Catholics ? It is because they have always refused to 
join with them in their outcry against slavery and the South. Of all the mobs 
that have hounded and howled at the heels of Southern men that have gone to 
the North for their property, who has ever heard of a mob of foreigner's ?_ How 
many instances have there been, like the memorable one of Burns, at Boston, 



335 

where Irishmen have vindicated the Constitution and law. against the fiendish 
clamor of raging and gnashing hell-hound mobs of native Abolitionists. Call 
the Northern Know Nothing the American party ? It is American in but one 
sense of the word, and that the meanest, shabbiest and most sncakiug. It is 
the Yankee itarty . To persecute and proscribe foreigners is not an American 
policy, because it is not a Southern policy ; and nothing can be truly Aiuericaa 
which is not heartily Southern. To persecute and proscribe foreigners is only 
a Yankee policy. Yankees at the South join in it. Yankees at the North join 
in it. The Know Nothing is a Yankee policy. The Know Nothing is '' The 
Yankee Party." 

The foreigners and Catholics at the North have never joined in the Abolition 
crusade against us. Three thousand and fifty Yankee pulpits, filled — we will 
not say by Protestants, but filled by Infidels — are constantly belching forth fire 
and brimstone, hell and damnation against the South. Theodore Parkers, An- 
toinette l^rowns and Horace Greeleys, too pious to take the sacrament of the 
Lord's Supper, from disgust at the intoxicating wine in use at the Holy Table, 
fulminate anathemas upon the South and slavery, day and night, in season and 
out of season, from the pulpit, from the hustings, and from the press, until our 
Southern people can no longer travel at the North without encountering insult 
at every step and hour. But who has ever known the Catholic pulpit to court 
popular favor by such incendiary means ; and who has ever known Irishmen to 
join in this crusade of insult and aggression upon- the South ? These two per- 
secuted classes have made themselves obnoxious to the Northern populace, and 
hateful as Mordecai the Jew in the sight of Haman, to .their incendiary preach- 
ers and politicians, by sternly and nobly standing aloof from the fanaticism, 
and interfering, when they interfere at all, only to defend the integrity of the 
Constitution and to assert the might of the violated law. Who ever heard of 
an itinerant Irish lecturer against slavery ? Who ever heard of a political ser- 
mon against this constitutional institution from a Catholic pulpit ? How conso- 
nant with the whole tenor of Irish conduct on this question was the prompt, 
the gallant, the unselfish and the peci.niarily suicidal denunciations of John 
Mitchell, against the revilers of the slaveholders I Well might Lord. Carlisle 
in his leave-taking lecture at Boston, after a thorough tour of this country, de- 
clare that " the worst enemy of the Abolitionist was the Irishman, and the 
most staunch defender of slavery was the Irishman." The party which de- 
nounces, disfranchises, persecutes and proscribes the Irish Catholic, whatever 
else it may be, is not a Southern party. If it take root at the South, the fact 
will only confirm the slander that republics of self-governing people are un- 
grateful ; it will be a Southern party with Northern principles ; it will be a 
Yankee Party on Southern soil. 

Look to those States of the North where the foreign population holds a lar- 
ger ratio than elsewhere, and where they exercise the greatest degree of politi- 
cal influence — look to the vigorous young States of Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, 
Iowa, and Michigan, as contrasted with Ohio, New York, and the States of 
New Eugland ; and, until this new crusade arose to temporarily unite the pop- 
ular masses with Abolition natives, in a common crusade against the Democratic 
party and the foreign voters usually acting with them, those States which had 
the largest infusion of the foreign element in their populations, are found to 
have been the staunchest defenders of constitutional politics and Southern rights. 
We speak, of course, of the ratio of foreign population actually and permanent- 
ly settled down in homes of their own, as distinguished from foreigners living 
from hand to mouth by working on railroads and laboring in other migratory 
employments. 

What though the increase of this element be indeed rapid, as asserted by 
Ex-Governor Smith, and, second-hand, by Mr. Flournoy ; will the Virginia 
politician object to a gradual and healthful augmentation of our natural friends 



336 

in the Northwest ? The fact is notorious, that foreigners at the North stand 
aloof from the Abolition movement, and that the staunchest Democratic anti-Abo- 
lition States of that section of the Union are chiefly those in which foreigners, 
who have found permanent homes, constitute a larger proportion than elsewhere 
of the whole population. 

We are agitating in the South against foreignism as an evil, although foreign- 
ers are our staunchest friends at the North, where the}' number 2,201,118 in 
the census of 1850, and although the evil at the South is so small and trifling 
as to constitute less than two per cent, of our popnlation, and numbers a grand 
total in all the South of but 43,530 souls ! \We have never known a more 
monstrous piece of folly and blindness than this enlistment of Southern men 
in a Yankee crusade against foreigners.' We can only imagine a single ground 
on which it can be plausibly excused ; and that is, that the evil of foreignism 
is so entirely Northern and so microscopically Southern, as to induce the notion 
that immigrants seek the North from a natural repugnance to our people and 
institutions. But who can believe such a charge ? An Irishman prejudiced 
ao^ainst a Virginian or a Kentuckian ! The thought is as monstrous as the no- 
tion itself is false and unnatural. Immigrants go to the North because emi- 
grant ships land them at Boston, New York and Philadelphia; and because, 
the North being engaged most largely in manufactures, mines, internal improve- 
ments, and the mechanic arts, all requiring cheap white labor, they find em- 
ployment in that quarter of the Union more promptly and surely than in the 
agricultural South. When they can find work at the South, they never hesi- 
tate to migrate hither; and no Soutliern man has ever yet heard of a foreigner 
leaving the South from preference for the North. No man has ever yet heard 
of foreigners, like Yankees, coming in sheep's clothing to sympathize with our 
slaves, and clandestinely shipping them off from their owners by underground 
railroads. 



DYING WAILS FROM THE CULVERT. 

Some unknown friend — probably a repentant Know Nothing about to bolt 
the Order and come over to the Democracy — has contrived into our possession a 
curious budget of documents, yet damp from the press, intended, no doubt, to 
be poured out in deluges over the State of Virginia, upon the eve of the elec- 
tion. To be forewarned is to be forearmed — and on that principle we lay the 
precious batch before our readers, in order that the Democracy may have a 
knowledge of the weapons with which they are to be assailed in the dark, before 
yet the blows are dealt. 

The documents breathe a savage and truculent spirit enough ; but we are 
very sure that though venomous as serpents they are harmless as doves. We 
have rarely seen a paper so overflowing of gall and bitterness and worm- 
wood, and yet so imbecile and impotent to subserve any effective purpose, as 
Sam's First Epistle to the Hindoos. 

It is as unlike Paul to Timotlii/ as could be conceived, through it breathes 
out fire and slaughter as fiercely as Saul of Tarsus on his way to Damascus. 
How awfully savage is it on that mythical body, " the Anti-American Junto" 
of Uichmond. We have heard a great deal of the Junto. It is said that we have 
had something to do with the killing of the old iniquity. That fact was an- 
nounced in the New York Herald five month ago, and seeing that the Herald 
is chief organ of the Know Nothings in North America, the fact of the Junto's 
demise is undeniable. .The Junto is a myth — a ghost, beyond doubt or cavil; 
and yet it is amusing to see how it still haunts the imagination of Sam. He 
can't divest himself of the idea that the monster is still alive, and protests to 



337 

Ills people that it is " daily and nirrjitly manufacturing and sending into all 
parts of the State secret IIookbacks — outrageous villilications — shameless mis- 
representations — unmitigated falsehoods — miserable resorts — shameless tricks — 
total fabrications — men of straw" — and legions of similar hobgoblins. To say 
that Sam is frightened and in despair, would be telling but half the story. 
Sam is frantic. See how he raves. The italics, small caps, and CAPITALS 
are all his own : 

SAM'S first epistle to the HINDOOS. 

Richmond, May 12, 1855. 

Dear Sir : We have just learned from authority of the most undoubted 
character, that the Anti-American Junto of this city arc daihj and NIGHTLY 
manufacturing and sending into all parts af the State Secret Roorbacks, 
containing the most outrageous villifications of our Order, the most shameless 
misrepresentations of its objects and aims, and the most unmitigated false- 
hoods in relation to its present standing and position. The object of this letter 
is to warn you, and through you, every member of your Council, and every 
friend of the American cause, to beware of the legion of Roorbacks which 
they will start, in the desperation of what they fear, and we believe, to be ilidr 
LAST e.rpiriny effort ! 

One of their miserable resorts has been exposed to us this morning. They 
have already issued a large number of secret circular-, setting forth that there 
have been several thousand withdrawals from the American Councils, apd that 
a few days before the election, a Us' of these withdrawals will he /iirnished to 
the tinder strappers of the Junto. The object of this cannot be doubted. It 
is to spread dismay through the ranks of Americans, and discourage and unnerve 
the efforts of our leading men. Now, without any hesitation, we pronounce 
the whole thing as miserable and shameless a trick as ever issued even from the 
corrupt source from which it emanates. We knoio what we say, and speak 
from the record when we declare, that they cannot parade the names of a thou- 
sand members in the whole State of Virginia, (out of 75,000,) who have with- 
drawn from the Order. We know it to be a total fabrication, a shameless 
lioorhacJc, and arraNT FALSEHOOD ! They may parade the names of thou- 
sands, but we declare mo^i positiveli/ and emphatically,, that if so, fourtifths 
will prove men of straw — men who were never men of our Order — who have 
not withdrawn, or who never had existence anywhere except in the very fertile 
imaginations of our most reckless and unscrupulous adversaries ! 

But here we will ask, even if they could parade the names of 5,000 who 
had withdrawn from the Order, what would that amount to ? Would not even 
that number leave us 70,000 good and true men in the Order, which, with 
30,000 outsiders, whom we know will go with us, will make a total of 100,000, 
or enough to hurj/ this miserable Junto, with its myriad corrvptions, too deep to 
he even smelt again ? 

But, si?, we tell you again, thai they cannot parade one thousand actual with- 
draicals, if their earthly existence dejiended on it. 

We beg to call your attention to a circumstance which alone should establish 
the villainy of this transaction. If this report — this list of names — is honest, 
correct, true — why, WHY have they not published them in their papers in 
time to have their genuineness examined, and truth or falsity TESTED. 
Both the Daily Post and Whig of this city, have repeatedly called on the Junto 
papers to publish the names and localities of the " wiiudrawals" which by 
scores and fifties they were heralding through their papers, but without giving 
either names or localities. These, they were not only called upon, but 
dared to give. They were finally goaded into making positive declarations ia 
■ the following instances, which were the only positive ones now recollected : 



338 

(Here follow the alleged charges, followed by most ferocious refutations.) 

Here, then, sir, we have at much length taken pains to dissect the four 
Roorbacks which the enemy have dared to locate — read them attentively, and 
judge for yourself. Fahus in uno, fahus in omnihus. [Bad Latin, Sam.] 
False in one, fal.-^e in all. 

Finding it would never do to present the names and localities of their sham 
defection, followed as they were by such immediate and complete exposures, 
they have, it seems, concluded to issue an advance circular, claiming several 
thousand ivithdraicals, and promising to give iheiiames in a SECRET CIRCULAR 
Just he/ore the election, when it loould BE TOO LATE TO expose TIIElft FALSITY. 

Then again, sir, we repeat, sound the news in advance through your Coun- 
cils. Watch for Roorbacks of every possible description, and believe none 
YOURSELF, nor allow any others to be imposed upon by such base means. Re- 
collect that with our opponents it is a death struggle, and as drowning men 
catch at straws, they will endeavor to seize hold of every imaginable pretext 
and falsehood which promises to give them even a single vote. 

Gird on your armour then — return blow for blow, like brave soldiers, confi- 
dent of Victory. Remember that while you are fighting, your brothers here 
and elsewhere are battling manfully in a common cause — a cause which involves 
the fate of our Union, our Bible, and our Faith. Let this, then, animate your 
hearts, and nerve your arms, in what we sincerely believe to be a contest invol- 
ving mightier interests than any before tested since " the days that tried men's 
souls.'' Remember ! that 

To fight 
In a just cause, and for our country's glory, 
Is the best office for the best of men ; 
And to decline when these motives urge, 
Is infamy beneath a coward's baseness. 

Respectfully and fraternally, 

C. A. ROSE, 

P. POINDEXTER, 

RO. D. WARD. 

Sam's second epistle is not so savage as the first, but far more pithy, efi'ec- 
tive, and to the point. It is evidently the composition of higher grade of Je- 
suits than the boquet above. We have not the pleasure of a personal acquain- 
tance with Mr. 17-:-3.21.12.2.7; or with Mr. J- 1-6.12. 13.2. 7.1.8 ; or even 
•with Mr. &C.-17-2G.12. Tt. They are in a terrible state of alarm at the fan- 
cied thorough organization of the Democracy, and have taken measures suited 
to such an emergency. We publish the document entire, and as it is always 
lawful to fight the Devil with his own weapons, we trust the suggestions of tiie 
^^undersigned;' Messrs. 17-:-3.21. 12.2.7, J-I-6.12.13.2.7.1.8, and &C.-17- 
26.12.Tt, will not be lost on the Democracy : 

SAM's second epistle to the HINDOOS. 

Richmond, May 9th, 1855. 

Dear Sir: — The undersigned, claiming no other excuse than the general good 

of the American party, have taken the liberty to request you and 

-of your county, to act as a special county committee, for the purpose of eifecting 
an immediate and, if possible, a thorough organization in your county, unless 
you haye already done so. We respectfully ask your earnest attention to the 
following : 



339 

Wc have as glorious a cause as ever moved the American people since the 
da3's of '76 — a cause which must commend itself to the American people, and 
which must, as a matter of palpable necessity, become the dominant party ia 
the land. The present struggle is one which more completely involves the fate 
cf our Union, our Bible, and our Faith, and all else that we hold near and dear, 
than any other that has occurred since the United States became a nation : for 
it is a struggle which is to foreshadow the end — of which this is but the be- 
ginning. 

But, strong as is our position, high and holy as our mission is, and as much 
as it commentls itself to the people, we beg our friends not to rely too couhdently 
to its inherent strength alone. We have an enemy ever watchful, ever vigilant, 
ever untiring, and ever, as now, utterly unscrupulous. They are old tacticians, 
who having long succeeded by " management," will now, in their hour of peril, 
resort to every means that unscrupulous knavery can suggest, or the most un- 
tiring energy carry out. 

The enemy, too, are completely organized, and that in the most thorouglx 
and efficient manner. Their " modus operandi" is secret and efiective — is con- 
fided to a few and proper hands. They first have a State Central Committee, 
who appoint sub-committees in every county, who in turn appoint sub-commit- 
tees in every precinct. These precinct committees' first business is, to ascer- 
tain the number of Whigs outside the order, and the nunjber of Democrats in. 
Each man on this list is put under the special care of one, two or three men 
best calculated/to exert an influence upon him, who are instructed to use the 
argument best calculated to influence him against the American party. These 
committee-men, on some plausible excuse visit the persons under their particu- 
lar charge. To the Whigs outside, they will urge the folly, the madness and 
impolicy of sacrificing their cherished principles — the principles of that " noble 
old party," "the brave party of principle," itc, to a new party, whose aims 
are mysterious, and whose designs they know not of. To the Democrats inside, 
the American party will be denounced as a Whig trick, the same miserable old 
blue light, Hartford Convention, Federal and Bank Whig party. They will 
denounce it as unchristian, unpatriotic and unconstitutional. They will declare 
it abolitionism in disguise, and importation from the North, from England, &c., 
&c. They will misrepresent its principles, its aims and its acts. They will swear 
it has driven evei'y national man from the United States Senate-^that it elected 
Seward and Wilson, and probably Sumner, and Trumbull, and Durkee, and 
Chase, and Hale, and Wade, and Fessenden, and a host of other abolitionists, 
who, so far from being Know Nothings, arc among their most intensely bitter, 
opponents. They will beseech them to come out from among a set of " loust/, 
Christless, Godless j^Iotters," conspirators, traitors, midnight assassins and pros- 
titutes of the pot-houses. 

In this manner, and in this style, they will visit, and are now daily visit- 
ing, every inside Democrat, and outside VVhig in the State. Every device will 
be resorted to, to " wean those weak in the faith.'' They will not only visit our 
members, but will stay with them, eat with them, drink with them, and sleep 
with them. Sometimes they will double or triple teams, and bring double and 
triple batteries to bear on the more obstinate and difiicult — will seek to frighten 
the timid, seduce the fishy, and "fatigue" and worry the true and honest ones 
out of the party. 

Thus will the most powerful political machinery that political tacticians ever 
did invent, or ever can invent — that of direct personal appeal, entreaty and 
compulsion — be brought to bear, with concentrated force, upon the members of 
our organization in every section of the State. It is idle to say that such means, 
so constantly and so perseveringly applied, will be without effect, unless they 
are promptly and effectively met by the vigilance of our friends in every coun- 
ty of the State. 



340 

The only way to check this influence is to meet it promptly, and in that 
view we most earnestly and respectfully request your attention to the follow- 
ing 

SUGGESTIONS. 

That on the reception of this you will hold an immediate conference with 
of your county • and th;it you together shall appoint a com- 



mittee of- active, intelligent and efficient men in each precinct of the 

county, who will act as a precinct committee, and who will fully and efficiently 
carry out the following suggestions by all honorable means : 

let. To make a perfect list of every man who will vote the American 
ticket. 

2nd. A similar list of every man who will vote the Anti-American ticket. 

3rd. A doubtful list, embracing every man, whether now with or agdnst us, 

who can be swerved or induced in any manner; to place each man on this list 

under the care of some one, two, or more men, who will make it their special 

business to see, talk and even labor with every man or men placed under their 

' charge, with a view to the following results : 

1st. If an American, to protect him from the arts of the enemy, and to keep 
the wavering firm in the faith. 

2ad. To influence as many of the Anti-Americans to vote with us as possi- 

3rd. To induce as many as will not vote with us not to vote against us — 'if 
they will do us no good, at least to do us no harm. 

4th. And finally, to see that every American vote is brought out and polled 
on the day of election. 

j^^ Please instruct the committee of each precinct, immediately after elec- 
tion, to send full returns of their precincts, addressed to the Editors Daily 
Whi^, Richmond, and all will thus know by extras issued from that office the 
result in a few days after election. 

17-:-3.21.12.2.7 ") 

J-!-G.r2.13.2.7.1.8 [ Committee. 
&c.-17-2G.12.Tt. etc.) 

What a pity to take away these young men's Bibles! To steal their purses 
13 to steal trash ; but to take away their Bibles — what a cruelty ! 

Epistle third is an eloquent dissertation from Sam on the importance of a 
single vote. He has been boasting of his fifty and eighty thousands for months 
past and professing a generous willingness in his bets with the Democracy to 
give odds of fives and tens of thousands against himself; but since the late 
terrible reaction commenced, and his men have forsaken him by entire lodges 
and councils, Sam is firmly convinced that he cannot spare a single vote; and 
vouchsafes a special epistle to the faithful, on the necessity of getting out every 
vote be can call his own. Democrats of Virginia, learn a lesson for yourselves 
■while reading 

SAM'S third epistle to the HINDOOS. 

KiCHMOND, May 14th, 1855. 

Dear Sir : — The object of this communication is to call your especial attention 
to the possible importance of every single vote in your, and every other pre- 
cinct in the State, accompanied by such illustrations as occur to us at the mo- 
meQt : 



341 

In 1797, the President was elected by a majority of three in the electoral 
college — in 1801, by seven. Virginia was carried in 1840 by 500 votes. In 
1844, 5,000 votes in New York, out of 550,000, or one in 55, made Mr. Polk 
President ; hence, had this vote been cast for Clay, he would have been elected 
by five votes. 

Some ten years ago, Marcus Morton was elected Governor of Massachusetts 
by a majority of one. In many other instances, ten votes have decided the 
fate of the gubernatorial election. 

Mr. Benton was made Senator by one vote. Many other Senators have been 
elected by majorities of from one to ten. 

In 1840, the candidates for Congress tied each other in two instances in a sia- 
gle State, and two were elected by one majority, and three more were elected by 
majorities of from three to twenty. In the same State, in 1848, there was one 
tie, three were elected by one majority, and several others by majorities of from 
five to fifty. On one occasion, a distinguished Virginian was elected to Con- 
gress by five majority, and at the next term defeated by seven. A hundred 
instances could be given of members of Congress elected by majorities of from 
one to five votes, and a thousand where majorities of one to five have carried 
State Senators, and members of the different Legislatures. 

In the coming election, we expect to see several of our candidates for Con- 
gress, Senate and House, elected by very small majorities, perhaps by a single 
vote. Remember then, sir, that the failure to vote in a single instance, in 
your precinct, may lose us a Delegate, Senator, Congressman, and even U. S. 
Senator. The election of Flournoy, however, if our strength is polled, is as 
certain as the rising of to-morrow's sun. 

Probably, in Virginia, an average of five of our voters in each precinct will 
resolve to stay at home, each thinking his own vote can make no great diffe- 
rence; but remember that there are 1,000 precincts in the State, and that a loss 
of five votes in each precinct would be 5,000 in the State, or more votes than 
made Mr. Polk President in 1844. 

Then, sir, we call on you and your friends, and the friends of the cause, to 
loork, v.ORK, WORK ! See that every vote, in every precinct in your county, 
is brought out. Your brothers call on you to work for us as we work for you ! 

The Junto is setting day and NIGrHT. The lights in their culvert are never 
suffered to go out. They set us an example. Let us improve it. 

Confident of Victory, we are yours, &c., 

C. A. ROSE, ■) 

P. POINDEXTER, t Committee. 

RO. D. WARD, S 

Jg@" Call the Council together the night before election. 



LETTER FROM THE HON. DANIEL S. DICKINSON ON KNOW 

NOTHINGISM. 

The following letter, first published in the Tallahasse Floridian and Journal 
of August 4th, was written in June 1855. — Ed. N. Y. Daily Neios. 

My Dear Sir : On my return to my residence a few days since, from a pro- 
fessional engagement abroad, I found your favor of a late date inquiring for 
my views touching the principles of the " American" or " Know Nothing" 
organization. Before I found time to answer, I was hurried to this place to 
attend the Court of Appeals now in session, where the business in which I am 



342 

engaged affords little time or opportunity for correspondence. I will, however, 
as I have no concealments upon public questions, borrow a moment from ray 
pressing duties to say quite hastily, that 1 have no knowledge concerning the 
Order to which you allude, except such as is acquired from publications pur- 
porting to give information upon the subject, and must therefore confine myself 
to such points as are embraced within this range. It is generally understood 
and conceded to be a secret society or organization, designed to act politically 
in the contests of the day. Of this secret feature I entirely disapprove, and 
am unable to understand by what necessity, real or supposed, it was dictated, 
or upon what principle it can be justified. Free public discussion and open 
action upon all public affairs, are essential to the health — nay, to the very exis- 
tence — of popular liberty ; and the day which finds the public mind reconciled 
to the secret movements of political parties, will find us far on our way to the 
slavery of despotism. If good men may meet in secret for good purposes, we 
can have no assurance that bad men, under the siime plausible exterior, will 
not secretly sap the foundations of public virtue. 

Whether I am in favor of tlieir platform upon the question of domestic sla- 
very, must depend upon what it is; or rather, whether they are in favor of 
mine. If their platform is to be regarded as including, upholding or justifying 
such political monstrosities as the " personal liberty bill," recently passed into 
a law by the Massachusetts Legislature over the veto of Governor Gardner, then 
I pronounce it treason of the deepest dye — treason, rank, unblushing and bra- 
zen — deserving of public reprehension and condign punishment. If upon this 
subject their platform conforms to resolutions recently published, purporting to 
be the voice of a majority of the Convention assembled at Philadelphia, it is in 
substance the same upon which I have stood for years — upon which I did not 
enter without counting the consequences, and which I intend to relinquish only 
with life. I have not now these resolutions before me, but as I recollect them, 
I approve them in substance as sound national doctrine. I ignore no part of 
the Federal Constitution, either in theory or in practice, to court the popular 
caprices of the moment, to gain public station, or to minister to the necessities 
or infirmities of those in power. Nor can I distrust the soundness of principles 
approved upon full consideration under a high sense of duty, because others 
may choose to adopt and embrace them. 

I cannot believe that any good can be accomplished by making the birthplace 
a test of fidelity or merit. It does not accord with, but is at war with the 
genius of our institutions. That abuses have been practiced by the appoint- 
ment of foreigners to places of trust, before sufiieiently familiar with our Con- 
stitution, laws, and social system, or to which, from circumstances, they were 
unsuited, is probable. This, however, is, in some respects, common to native 
as well as naturalized citizens, and arises not from a defective system, but from 
its erroneous administration. It is in both respects the natural result of placing 
in the hands of the incompetent the distribution of public patronage. 

Upon the subject of naturalized citizens, I have been governed by considera- 
tions of justice and duty, and have designed to observe the spirit of my coun- 
try's Constitution. When members of Congress engage in a steeple chase, to 
see who should propose earliest, give most, and vote loudest, to feed suffering 
Ireland from the federal treasury a few years since, not finding any warrant for 
such proceedings I voted against it, and let public clamor exhaust itself upon 
my head in denunciations. When I learned that the foreigner who had in good 
faith declared his intentions of citizenship, by setting his foot upon a foreign 
shore in case of shipwreck, without any intention of remaining abroad, lost the 
benefit of his proceedings, I introduced and procured the passage of a bill. to 
redress the grievance. These principles have governed my public conduct, and 
now guide my opinions. The Constitution, administered in its true spirit, is, 
in my judgment, sufiicient for the protection of all, whether native or natural- 



343 

ized, and for the redress of all political evils which can be reached by human 
government. 

I have the honor to be, 

Your friend and servant, 

D. S. DICKINSON. 



A MONSTROUS FRAUD. 

The following article from the Cincinnati ^'M^'in'rer will throw a now_ light 
upon the Know Nothing villainy practiced in the circulation of the Cincinnati 
Times, through Virginia, designed to operate on the election of next Thursday. 
The :ZVmes is an abolition paper, and, in its issues "circulated at home, and 
through the free States, asserts that the Secret Order is anti-slavery.'' The 
Cincinnati Enquirer, in a previous article, said that <' the greatest care is taken 
at the office of the Times, not to allow a copy of the issue, intended for the 
Virginia market, to be seen in Cincinnati, where its sentiments would be inju- 
rious to the Know Nothing cause and prejudicial to the interests of the paper." 
This Times Roorback, sent to Virginia, is one of the most infamous frauds ever 
resorted to by a party, and the following exposure should arouse every honest 
Virginian to an indignant reprobration of an organization, based upon trickery 
and deception : — Richmond Enquirer. 

Virginia Election — The Spurious Edition of the Times sent to that State. — 

Infamous Fraud. 

We have received a letter from Wheeling in relation to the Weekh/ Times oi 
this city, with which the Know Nothings are flooding the State of Virginia. 
This issue of the Times is tilled with articles endeavoring to prove that the 
Know Nothings of the North are pro-slavery. The Times, however, which is 
circulated, at home and throughout the free States, asserts that the order is 
anti-slaverij. A gross fraud is, therefore, being practised upon the Virginians, 
which, if they are true to themselves, they will resent. Like '' orator Puff" the 
Times has two tones to its voice, and puts on two faces — one for the North, the 
other for the South. The Times which is sent to Indiana contradicts the Times 
which is sent to Virginia. It would be a terrible thing for that journal if, by 
some mistake of its mailing clerks, the editions should get transposed — the 
slavery Times finds its way to Indiana and the anti-slavery times to Virginia. 

We shall endeavor to procure a copy of the Virginia edition, and make some 
extracts from it for the benefit of its Northern Freesoil readers, who will start 
in amazement at finding such sentiments advocated in that sheet. The Virgi- 
nians, by the time of the election, will be pretty well informed of this dirty 
Abolition trick to wheedle them out of their votes, and we are confident it will 
react upon its perpetrators. Our friends in Virginia are making a most gallant 
struggle to preserve that State from the enemy and we have every assurance of 
their success. Our Wheeling correspondent says that " the prospects for carry- 
ing the State in favor of Wise are very flattering. I think his election is cer- 
tain, beyond doubt. The only question is, how large will his majority be?" 
The Richmond Enquirer, the central democratic organ, whose conductors are 
always excellently informed in Virginia politics, estimates Mr. Wise's majority 
at fifteen thousand over his Know Nothing competitor. Mr. Wise himself, 
after travelling most of the State, is sanguine of twenty thousand. The recent 
municipal election at Harper's Ferry, which resulted in favor of the Democrats, 
is a significant indication, and shows that the popular current is running in the 
right direction. — [ Cincinnati Enquirer. 



344 



CONGRESSIONAL CANVASS. 

The Congressional Districts of Virginia, in 1855, were the theatre of great 
political excitement, and iu nearly all of them the Know Nothings brought for- 
ward candidates of taeir own party, and boldly predicted the defeat of at least 
eight of the Democratic candidates for Congress. 

I. Judge Thomas H. Bayly, of the county of Accomac, the represcntive 
of that district in Congress for the last ten years, was a candidate for re-election 
in the first district without regular opposition, although Messrs. GtARNETT and 
Montague received handsome complimentary votes in portions of the district 
where Judge Bayly's views upon the principles of the Know Nothing party 
were not popular with the Democratic party. It was a source of deep regret, 
with many of Judge Bayly's political friends, that he avoided making a 
direct issue with the Know Nothing party, and actually expressed himself 
favorably to some of their doctrines. The result of his course during the can- 
vass, was eminently favorable to his individual interests, and he was elected to 
Congress without, as we have said, any regular opposition. 

The congressional elector in this district was Robert L. Montague, one of 
the most fearless, able and energetic Democrats in the State. He was, some 
years ago, a distinguished member of the Legislature from the counties of Mid- 
dlesex and Matthews ; and is a lawyer of extensive practice and great popu- 
larity. During the last canvass, his services as a speaker were of great advan- 
tage to the Democratic party of the first district. 

II. In the second district, Gren. Millson, of the City of Norfolk, was the 
nominee of the Democratic party for Congress. In this district the Know 
Nothings were confident of success, and nominated Mr. Watts, of Norfolk, as 
their candidate, a gentleman of considerable talent, who was a prominent mem- 
ber of the Reform Convention of 1850. It was supposed that Gen. Millson's 
vote as a member of Congress, against the Kansas Nebraska bill, would mate- 
rially diminish his prospects of success, as it had excited a strong prejudic'e 
against him with many leading members of his party. But the Democratic 
party of his district, feeling assured that Gen. Millson's course upon that 
question was the result of his ultra and impracticable pro-slavery views, rather 
than of sympathy with the Freesoil party, re-elected him to Congress by a large 
majority. The result in this district was as unexpected as it was gratifying to 
the Democratic party. 

Mordecai Cooke, of Norfolk city, a lawyer of distinction, and an efficient 
elector during the presidential canvass of 1852, was the elector in this district; 
but was prevented by ill health from taking any part in the canvass. 

III. In the third district, Hon. John S. Caskie, so widely known as an 
eloquent, chivalrous and able champion of Democracy, was a candidate for re- 
election, his course as a member of Congress having given universal satisfaction 
to the Democratic party of the Metropolitan District. The Know Nothings 
were, in this district, confident of defeating Judge Caskie, and this anticipation 
of a long and certain victory, afilictcd the Know Nothing councils' with a num- 



345 

ber of aspirants, whose claims were urged with great zeal by their respective 
friends. 

The most prominent of these gentlemen were A. J. Crane, Hon. J. M. 
BoTTS, and Wm. C. Scott, of the City of Richmond. The latter gentleman 
bad been, for a short time, a citizen of llichmond, and formerly represented 
the county of Powhatan for many years in the Legislature with considerable 
ability. He was also the Know Nothing elector for the district, and was ac- 
tively engaged in the canvass for several weeks before he received the nomina- 
tion of his party for Congress. Mr. Scott is a gentleman of good education, 
unblemished private character, and remarkable for the accuracy of his political 
information. He was the most available of all the prominent Know Nothing 
politicians of the district, and received the full vote of his party. The discus- 
sions of Messrs. Caskie aTad Scott were conducted with great courtesy and 
good feeling, and in no previous canvass were the speeches of Judge Caskie 
more eloquent and effective than in that of 1855. He was re-elected to Con- 
gress by a handsome majority. 

The elector in this district was Mr. P. H. Aylett. His labors were arduous 
and incessant during the entire campaign, and were as effective as his brilliant 
talents, united with such untiring service, was calculated to be. Nor did Mr. 
Aylett confine his exertions to his own field of labor, but accepted many invi- 
tations from different quarters of the State, everywhere vindicating his high 
reputatftn for talents and powers of oratory. 

IV. In the fourth district, Hon. William 0. Goode, a gentleman of great 
political experience, ripe years, and of State reputation, was the Democratic can- 
didate for Congress. Mr. Goode was a member of the Convention of 1829 '30, 
and of 1850, and was for many years a distinguished member of the Legislature, 
and had served in Congress two sessions with distinction. He was opposed by 
Mr. Tazewell of Mecklenburg, a young gentlemen of great facetiousness, whose 
anecdotes during the canvass, were exceedingly entertaining, and pleasing to 
his auditors. The district was regularly canvassed by the candidates, and Mr. 
Tazewell was beaten by about two thousand majority. " Alas poor Yorick." 

The elector in this district was Hon. Richard Kidder Meade of Petersburg, 
formerly a prominent member of Congress, and distinguished leader of the 
States Right party. He canvassed the district with great activity, and contri- 
buted largely to the extraordinary triumph of the Democratic party on the 
Southside. 

The Southside Democrat, published in Petersburg, was edited with signal 
ability during the canvass, and was regarded as one of the best campaign papers 
in the State. It was edited by Messrs. Banks and Keily. 

V. Hon. Thos. S. Bocock, for six years the able and efficient representative 
of a large portion of the fifth district, was a candidate for re-election. The 
candidate of the Know Nothing party, was Mr. N. C Claiborne, of Franklin, 
once a prominent and popular member of the Democratic party, and for many 
years a member of the Legislature ; he was also a member of the Reform Con- 
vention of 1850. At a weak and unlucky moment, Mr. Claiborne yielded to 
the blandishments of the Know Nothing party, and fell from the respectable 



346 

position which he once occupied in our party. He received the nomination of 
the Know Nothing party, beating, it ia said, a talented young Whig lawyer of 
Pittsylvania, Mr. Carrington. Mr. Claiborne occupied an awkward posi- 
tion during the canvass, in consequence of his having attended the Democratic 
Convention at Staunton ; although, it was said, at that very time a member of 
the secret order. He took a prominent part in that convention for Mr. Leake. 
After the nomination of Mr. Wise, it is said that Mr. Claiborne publicly 
declared his willingness to support that gentleman, and declared himself ready to 
" scour" the mountains of Franklin for the nominee of the Staunton Convention. 
The unfortunate position of Mr. Claiborne rendered it necessary for Mr. Bo- 
COCK and the Democratic press of the State to handle that gentleman with gloves 
off. The following editorial from the Lyncliburg Republican, will afford our 
readers some idea of the scathing and merciless manner in which Mr. Clai- 
borne was dealt with. 

Political Purification — N. C. Claiborne. 

The particular attention of our readers is invited to the following graphic 
sketch of the political career of Mr. Claiborne, the Know Nothing candidate 
for Congress in this district. 

" The scripture moveth us in sundry places" to deal gently with the frailties 
of our fellow men. We confess and claim much of this milk of human kind- 
ness, and extend a scriptural toleration to their short comings. But there are 
some tilings which we are not at liberty to leave unexposed. * 

The Know Nothings set up to purify the politics of the country, and to con- 
summate this purification have nominated as their candidate for Congress in 
this district, N. C. Claiborne, Esq. An examination of the record of Mr. 
Claiborne presents some rare developments, and shows that he is perhaps about 
the only man now running for office in Virginia whose past conduct and present 
position exhibit an entire unconsciousness that there is such a thing as political 
principle. The honesty of most politicians situated as he is would be seriously 
impeached. But the application of such a standard to Mr. Claiborne would 
not in our judgment be just. We do not believe that Mr. Claiborne has good 
political principles. We do not believe that Mr. Claiborne has bad political 
principles. In fact from an intimate knowledge of his character we are satisfied 
that he has none at all, and never did have any. He was once elected to the 
Legislature pledged to oppose the Virginia and Tennessee Ivailroad. He went 
to the Legislature — voted for the road — and ran again for the Legislature as its 
peculiar champion, never once exhibiting a consciousness of his change. He 
came out a candidate for the late reform Convention upon the White "Basis at 
one court and a speech against the White Basis at the next court — he advocated 
Mr. Wise in 1851 and opposed him in 1854 — connected himself with the Know 
Nothing organization before the Staanton Convention— avows the fact in his 
public speeches — avows at the same time that he announced in that body his 
intention to support its nominees — and seemed utterly unconscious of the con- 
flict of obligations thus voluntarity assumed. He sent Mr. Bocock word that 
he approved cordially his representative conduct from Staunton, and at that 
same time and place, Mr. Bocock charges him with having declared that he in- 
tended opposing him and he does not seem conscious that here is a question 
worth explanation. He seems to look upon political honor in the same light 
in which Falstaff regarded personal honor. " Can Honor set a leg ? No. Or 
an arm ? No. Or take away the grief of a wound ? No. Honor hath no 
skill in surgery then ? No. What is Honor ? A word. What is that Ho- 



347 

nor ? Air. A trim reckoning. Who hath it ? lie that died on Wednesday. 
Doth he feel it ? No. Doth he hear it ? No. Is it insensible then ? Yea 
to the dead. But will it not live with the living ? No. Why ? Detraction 
will not suffer it — therefore I'LL NONE OF IT. Honor is a mere escutcheon, 
and so ends my catechism." 

Tlius soliloquized Falstaff, and thus we should judge thinks N. C. Claiborne 
of the honor of politics. And this man is put up for Congress to purify poli- 
tics. — Lijnclibunj Rejyuhlican. 

Mr. BococK was re-elected by an overwhelming majority, and since the elec- 
tion, Mr. Claiborne has disappeared from public view. Mr. Bocock's majority 
was upwards of 1800 over Mr. Claiborne. 

Mr. Hughes Dillard, of Henry County, a lawyer of distinction and a 
Democratic elector in 1852, was the elector in this district, and delivered several 
addresses of marked ability. He is at this time a distinguished member of the 
Legislature of Virginia. 

YI. In the sixth district, Hon. Paulus Powell, than whom there is not a 
more faithful and fearless representative in Congress, was a candidate for re-elec- 
•tion, having redeemed that district again and again by his energy and popularity. 
PoAVELL like BococK was opposed by a gentleman who was for many years a 
highly respectable member of the Democratic party. Dr. L. N. Ligon, of 
Nelson County, was the candidate of the Know Nothing party. Like Mr. 
Claiborne, Dr. Ligon Was a member of the Staunton Convention, and was 
friendly to Mr. Wise in the early part of the canvass. 

He was nominated by the Know Nothings, and at once accepted the nomina- 
tion and entered upon the canvass. He was defeated by Mr. Powell, who was 
re-elected to Congress by a large majority. 

The following articles appeared during the canvass in the Lijnchhurg Repub- 
lican and Charlottesville Jeffersonian relative to Dr. Ligon. 

Mr. Ltgon. — Mr. Ligon wanted to be one of the Board of Public Works. 
There seemed no prospect for him in the Democratic ranks. There was just as 
little prospect for him in the Know Nothing order. But the Know Nothings 
did have a " forlorn hope," which they were willing to give him, and Mr. Ligon, 
like the old maid of fifty praying for a husband, being willing to take " Any 
body, Good Lord," agreed to it. That place was a candidacy for Congress. 
Let us look at Mr. Ligon's claims upon the Know Nothings : 

1st. Mr. Ligon was a member of the Staunton Convention. A motion was 
made in that body to make the nomination of Mr. Wise unanimous. Mr. Li- 
gon did not oppose it. Unless he intended to sustain it, he was bound as an 
honorable man to have made known his opposition. 

2d. He was appointed Elector for the county of Nelson by the Democratic 
E.Kecutive Committee. Unless he declined it, the failure to decline was equiva- 
lent to an acceptance. He did not decline, so far as we can learn, unless it has 
been very lately. 

3d. pie met Mr. Wise at Lovingston — toadied him no little— applauded his 
speech — and bore himself as one of his best friends. 

4th. Until within the last six weeks he has been notoriously supporting Mr. 
Wise, and equally notoriously denouncing the Know Nothings. 

5th. We have heard that so venomous was his opposition to Know Nothing- 



348 

ism, that he declared he would as soon see a son of his a horse-thief as a Know 
Nothing. 

6th. He received for circulation documents against the Know Nothings, and 
did circulate them. 

This is a portion of Mr. Ligon's record. Is it such a one as even a Know 
Nothing can stand ? We know many of the Know Nothings in the Red Land 
District, and unless we are mistaken, they will scorn to vote for so late a con- 
vert. Mr. Ligon has been false to Mr. Wise. What assurance have they that 
he will not be false to Mr. Flournoy ? He has betrayed Democracy. Where 
is the guarantee that he will not betray Know Nothingism ? We shall have 
more to say on this subject. — Lynclihunj Repuhlicun. 

From the Charlottesville Jeffersonian. 
DR. LIGON VERSUS THE KNOW NOTHINGS. 

The following certificates of gentlemen of unimpeachable standing in Nelson 
county, one of whom is an old line Whig, will speak for themselves. Dr. Li- 
gon has certainly placed himself in a very unenviable position before the peo- 
ple of the district. In the face of the facts revealed by these certificates, we 
cannot perceive how any man who values political honesty in a candidate carf* 
give his support to Dr. Ligon : 

I hereby certify, that in repeated conversations with Dr. Littleberry N. Li- 
gon, about the Know Nothing party, the last of which was on the fourth Sun- 
day in March last, he repeated to me, in substance, as follows : That his son, 
Joseph Ligon, had been accused of belonging to this Kqow Nothing party, and 
that he (Dr. L. N. Ligon) said he would as soon be accused of being a horse- 
thief, as to be accused of belonging to this Know Nothing party. 

JAMES H. BRENT. 

Nelson County, April 24th, 1855. 

This is to certify, that in half dozen or more conversations with Dr. L. N. 
Ligon, respecting the objects of the Know Nothing party, he remarked, that 
he believed that party to be composed of Whigs principally, and that their prin- 
cipal object was to break down the Democratic party ; he also stated that he 
would sooner be a horse-thief than belong to such a party. I mentioned seve- 
ral Democrats that I believed belonged to the Know Nothing party ; his son 
Joseph was one of the number, to which the Doctor replied that he did not 
think his son belonged to that party, for he had observed that he had rather be 
a horse-thief than to belong to such a party, and that he saw no change in his 
son's countenance, when he, the Doctor made that remark. 

WM. N. BRYANT. 
Nelson County, April 24th, 1855. 

I hereby certify, that in a conversation, with Dr. L. N. Ligon, he spoke in 
very bitter terms of the Know Nothings; one remark which I distinctly recol- 
lect, was, that he did not consider them any better than a pack of darned horse 
thieves. 

NATHAN BRYANT. 

Nelson County, April 24th, 1855, 

I certify that in frequent conversations with Dr. L. N. Ligon, he, in every 
conversation, denounced the Know Nothing party in the harshest terms, and in 
our conversation, I told him that it was suspected that his son Joseph belonged 



349 

to the Know Nothing Order; be, the Doctor, said he had heard the same 
thing — did not know that it was so — but that he had said in his son's presence, 
that he had rather sec a son of his a horse thief than a Know Nothing. 

Dr. Ligon was an open advocate of Mr. Wise's election, up to Saturday be- 
fore Nelson March Court last. 

FLOYD L. WHITEHEAD. 

Nelson County, April 24th, 1855. 

I certify that in a conversation with Dr. L. N. Ligon, at Nelson February 
Court last, that I asked him if his son Joseph belonged to the Know Nothing 
party; he replied that he did not know, but that he had as soon his son was 
caught in a pack of horse thieves as among the Know Nothings ; that he be- 
lieved it was a plot to take in Democrats^ who did not understand the meaning 
of it. 

WM. GILES. 

JSfelson Count!/, April 24th, 1855. 

I do hereby certify, that on ray return home from February Court, I fell in 
with Dr. L. N. Ligon. I asked him what he thought of the Know Nothings, 
and how he liked tlieir platform. He replied that he did not like them ; that 
if they should get a majority, the country would be ruined ; that it was a 
scheme of the Northern Abolitionists to deceive the South ; that if they could 
obtain a niiijority in both houses of Congress, and obtain a- President, they 
would dissolve this Union, and involve the country in all the horrors and calam- 
ities of a civil war; that to prevent such a state of things, he thought all the 
Whigs who were Whigs from principle, and the Democrats, ought to unite, and 
use all the means in their power to put down that abominable party. He also 
advocated the election of Mr. Wise, and said that the foreigners and the Catho- 
lics were only a hobby to take in and deceive the ignorant. 

Given under my hand this 25th of April, 1855. 

OBADIAH HENDERSON. 

In this district, Mr. Wm. J. Robertson was appointed elector ; but resign- 
ing in consequence of the pressure of professional engagements. Mr. William 
F. Gordon, Jr. of Albemarle was substituted, and greatly distinguished himself 
by his speeches against the secret foe. 

VII. In the seventh district, Hon. William Smith was an independent can- 
didate for re-election. He was elected by a large majority, although his ad- 
vocacy of several of the doctrines of the Know Nothing party alienated many 
of his oldest party friends, and induced many to regard him as the candidate 
of the Know Nothing rather than of the Democratic party. Messrs. Lee of 
Orange, Funsten of Alexandria, and Marye of Fredericksburg, openly op- 
posed his re-election, and opposed him on the stump. Many Democratic votes 
were given for gentlemen who were not candidates for Congress, in consequence 
of Gov. Smith's course. During the present session of Congress, however, 
Gov. Smith has voted with the Democratic party, and appears anxious to return 
to its bosom. 

Mr. B. H. Berry, of the town of Alexandria, was the elector in this dis- 
trict, and addressed the people of nearly every county in the district. 

VIII. In the eighth district, Hon. Charles James Faulkner was the De- 
mocratic candidate for Congress. He was opposed by Mr. Alexander Bote- 



350 

LER, a member of the Know Nothing party, and a gentleman of considerable 
ability as a popular speaker. The district was canvassed with great energy by 
the candidates. lu this district the Know Nothings relied confidently upon the 
success of their candidate, but the sleepless industry and ability displayed by 
Mr. Faulkner secured his election by a respectable majority. Personal diffi- 
culties between the candidates, it was feared, would at one time result in a hos- 
tile meeting between Messrs. Faulkner and Boteler, but an honorable and sat- 
isfactory adjustment was accomplished by the friends of the parties. 

Mr. Thomas M. Isbell, of Jefferson, at one time a distinguished member 
of the State Senate from the Appomattox district, was the elector in this dis- 
trict, and delivered several very able and eloquent addresses during the canvass. 

.IX. lion. John Letcher, of Lexington, was a candidate for re election in 
the ninth district, and met with no opposition. Mr. Letcher is everywhere 
regarded as one of the most laborious and useful public men in the State, 
and his course as a member of Congress had won for him the esteem of 
his political adversaries, and the admiration of his own party. He is the 
representative of that famous " Tenth Legion," which, since the days of 
Jefferson, has never failed to present an unbroken front to the enemies of 
Democracy. Again and again, in times of extreme peril, have Rockingham 
and Shenandoah saved the State from the curse of federal misrule. In the last 
election, the patriotic voters of those two famous counties rolled up a majority 
so overwhelming as to leave doubts respecting the existence of Know Nothing- 
ism in that section of the State. 

Geo. E. Deneale, Esq., for many years the representative of Eockingham 
in the Senate, was the elector. 

Mr. Wm. H. Harman, of Augusta, one of the most talented and promising 
lawyers in the Valley of Virginia, was the senatorial elector for Augusta, and 
contributed as much as any man in the State, by his frequent and powerful 
speeches, ta the success of our party. This gentleman received a very large 
vote at the Staunton Convention for the office of Lieutenant Governor. 

■ X. Hon. Z. Kidwell was the Democratic candidate for Congress in the 
tenth district, and was opposed by the Rev. Mr. Pendleton of Bethany Col. 
lege, the nominee of the Know Nothing party. In this district the KnoAV 
Nothings resorted to every conceivable expedient to defeat the Democratic can- 
didate. Secret instructions and circulars were brought to light which revealed 
a system of fraud and trickery unworthy of respectable men, and which ef- 
fectually destroyed the prospects of the Know Nothing party in that district. 
Mr. Kidwell was re-elected by a very large majority. 

Hon. Sherrard Clemens, an ex-member of Congress, and the author of 
an excellent campaign document published elsewhere in this volume, was the 
elector for the eighth district. 

XL In the eleventh district, Jlr. Charles S. Lewis was the Democratic 
candidate for Congress. He was opposed and defeated by Mr. Carlisle, the 
Know Nothing candidate, who was some years ago a Democratic member of the 
Senate of Virginia. . 



351 

Benjamin W. Jacksod, Esq. of "Wood County, a, young and talented Dem- 
ocrat was the elector. Mr. Jackson was a few years ago a prominent member 
of the house of delegates. 

XII. In the twelfth district, Hon. Henry A. Edmondson was the Demo- 
cratic nominee for Congress. Mr. Edmondson has been for many years in Con- 
gress and has the entire confidence of his constituents. He was opposed hj Mr. 
Waller Staples, of Montgomery, a former member of the Legislature of Vir- 
ginia, and a leading member of his party in that district. The candidates 
canvassed the district most actively, and Mr. Edmondsou's speeches were marked 
by great force and eloquence. He was elected by a large majority. 

Hon. A. A. Chapman, for many years a member of Congress, and one of 
our most distinguished men, was the elector in this district. 

XIII. Hon. Fayette McMullin, for several years past a member of Con- 
gress, was a candidate for re-election in tho thirteenth district. He was eleeted 
by an overwhelming majority. Mr. Connelly F. Trigg was the Know Noth- 
ing candidate. 

This district was the theatre of the most animated and exciting canvass in 
Virginia. In the early part of the campaign the secret order foretold that they 
would sweep the Abingdon district by an overwhelming majority. The reite- 
rated declarations of the secret order of their certain and easy victory aroused to 
activity the most distinguished Democrats of that section of the State. Yield- 
ing to the solicitations of his friends, ex-GtOVERNOR Floyd of Washington 
County, the elector for that district declared himself a candidate for the Legis- 
lature. He was bitterly opposed by the most eloquent and popular Know Nothing 
in that section of the State. A fierce and relentless war was waged upon the 
Know Nothing party by such men as Ex-Governor Floyd, Thomas L. Pres- 
ton, "Benjamin Rush Floyd and William H. Cook. The Know Nothings 
upon their side spared nothing to win that victory of which they had so fre- 
quently and so confidently boasted. But from the accounts which have reached 
us there never were delivered in Virginia more eloquent and able speeches than 
were those of the champions of our party in Little Tennessee. Addressino' 
themselves to the good sense and patriotism of the intelligent yeomanry of that 
section of the State, they crushed an organization which at one time threat- 
ened the overthrow of our party. The overwhelming majority given by our 
party for the Democratic, ticket in southwest Virginia, was the result of the in- 
defati*gable eijertions of those eloquent champions to whom we have referred. 
Contrary to the expectations of both parties, in other portions of the State, 
Governor Floyd and Mr. Thomas L. Preston were elected to the Legislature 
by large majorities. 



THE SIGNAL GUN FROM THE RICHMOND EXAMINER. 

At the Staunton Gubernatorial Convention, the two leading Democratic jour- 
nals of the State differed as to which was the most suitable man to receive the 
nomination, Mr. Wise or Mr, Leake, The Enquirer took sides with the former; 



352 

the Examiner -with the latter. The Enquirer went immediately into the iSght 
but the Examiner, although tlcclaring promptly after the convention, as we have 
seen, its purpose, to support Mr. Wise, yet from certain local reasons did not 
choose to open its battery until about the first of February. After this time 
no journal couli have rendered more effective service to any party. We have 
drawn freely from that able and independent journal in this compilation, and in 
doing so we thought we could do nothing to answer our purpose better. Oa 
the eve of the election the following editorial, which we designate as the Signal 
Gun, appeared in the Examiner : 

TO THE INVINCIBLE DEMOCRACY ^ OF VIRGINIA. 

This is the last time our words can reach the great body of our readers before the 
election. We are glad that these last words are words of encouragement, con- 
fidem e and assurance. AVe use no electioneering artifice — we express no hesi- 
tating opinion, when we tell the Democracy of Virginia, that, if they do their 
duty, the victory is theirs. On no former occasion in the history of their bat- 
tles and victories have the party been so universally aroused and fiercelv indig- 
nant as now. Hesitating somewhat in the early part of the canvass — doubtful 
for a moment as to the true line of duty — they have been thoroughly aroused 
during the latter months of the contest, and — outraged, disgusted and incensed 
at the intrusion of so foul a thing as Know Nothingism in a Southern commu- 
nity, and in virtuous Virginia — they have risen up as one man to break its head 
and cast its loathsome carcass from the presence of decency and virtue. 

The frogs and locusts and vermin which infested Egypt, did not produce a 
more profound antipathy or universal loathing and retching ani.ng her 
people, than our honest Democracy of Virginia feel towards the polluting filth 
and nauseating slime which is denoted by the vulgarism — Sam. And they 
TOcan to deal with the intrusion in a summary way. They have a herculean task 
before them more formidable than the cleansing of the Augean stables; but, 
considering that great emergencies require great exertions, every man is resolved 
to make thorough work of his task, and to do it with an energy and complete- 
ness which will leave nothing to be done over again hereafter. The spirit of 
the Democracy everywhere — in every grand division and section, as well as in 
every county and precinct in the State, — is the same. One instinctive resolve 
and one common purpose actuates the whole mass. It is not any artificial or- 
ganization, the result of political machinery and thorough party drill, tliat has 
produced this intense unity of sentiment and of resolve ; but it is the intuitive 
leathing of what is mean, low, and vile, which actuates the heart of Virginia, 
and bauds her democracy together in serried phalanx. The old party lines fade 
and vanish in this contest. The impure ingredients that before had an accic|ental 
place in the Democratic mass fall off under the attraction of the foreign sub- 
stance that is brought in contact, leaving the pure lump of genuine Democracy 
cleansed and refined. The old opposing party also falls to pieces, giving up its 
dross and impurity to the newly imported foreignism, and leaving tbe pure Vir- 
ginianism to seek its natural afiinity in the mother element of unadulterated 
Virginia Democracy. 

No, this is no contest about men that our Democracy are waging now. It is 
not that we want to elect this man or to beat that man. It is not that our at- 
tachments to these candidates as men, or hostilities to those candidates as men, 
lead us to vote so and so. But the sentiment of the Virginia Democracy is : 
This is a foul, demoralizing, debasing, filthy thing, that has got into Virginia 
pastures from the Northern pig-sly, and is turning our land of honesty, truthfid- 
nesSf good manners^ and manly frankncsSf into a very Yankee s slough of 



353 

/ahchood, slander, deceit, cunning, detraction, meanness and v Hen ess. For the 
love ice hear our Common iccaith, and for the hatred she inspires in her sons /or 
all that is mean, grovelling and despicable, xvc must heat down this foul least 
and smite it unto deatKJ 

Who so craven and fiilso of heart as to believe we shall fail in the righteoua, 
noble work? Who can divest hiras If so far of the generous confidence that a 
brave man feels in the triumph of the right, as to entertain one thought of fail- 
ure ? The man deserves to be pilloried who allows the belief to possess him, 
that Sam, the bastard of a Five Points jail-bird, is going to triumph in Virgi- 
nia. He is no Democrat — no Virgini^m — no man, that can harbor the tliought. 

It cannot be, and will not be. Virginia Democracy will carry Virginia as 
sure as tho rising and setting of the sun. Angered, aroused, indignant and fe- 
rocious beyond all former precedent, our glorious, invincible Democracy long 
for the onset and thirst for the battle. As the bind pants for the water brooks, 
so they pant for the d.ty of vengeance. 

And woe, woe unto those w'lo have provoked their holy wrath. Woe unto 
the men who have brought deceit, cunning, duplicity, midnight and dark lantern 
plottings into Virginia. The day of retribution is at hand. The vengeance of 
the Lord is upon the heels of the false Egyptians, Phillistines, Moabites, 
Edomitcs, Ishmaelites. The Lord has brought sharp swords upon them, to make 
them food for the fowls of heaven and the beasts of the field. See how the 
clouds roll and mutter and the fire flashes before them. The anger of the 
righteous cometh fast upon them with the noise and fury of the storm, which 
shall surely overtake them. 

'Well is it for that man of Virginia, this day, wbo shall barter his bouse for 
an helmet, and sell his garment for a sword, and cast in his lot with the children 
of Democracy. But woe, woe, unto him who, for carnal ends and self seeking, 
has withheld himself from the great work, and joined his hand with the enemy — 
for the curse shall abide upon him — even the bitter curse of Meroz — forever 
and ever more, 



THE CONCLUSION OF THE CANVASS. MR. WISE'S LETTER. 

Mr. Wise concluded the campaign at Leesburg, the county seat of Loudon, 
in one of his masterly efforts. He bad been regularly in the field from the 
first of January to the seventh of May. In that time he bad traveled more 
than three thousand miles, had been upon the stump fifty times, and had con- 
sumed two hundred hours in public speaking. When he concluded, he was 
much .enfeebled and exhausted from the excessive labors he had undergone. In 
all probability, nothing saved his life but his indomitable and patriotic spirit. 
He went from Leesburg to Washington cit-y, and there awaited the decision of 
the people of Virginia. He wrote the following letter on his arrival in that 
city. In this letter can be-seen the true and fervid patriotism beaming and 
flashing in every sentence. 

To TUE People of Virginia. 

Fellow Citizens : — I have now finished the canvass of the State. On the 7th 
inst., at Leesburg, I met my last appointment. Incessant and excessive labors, 
for 127 days, have so impaired my health and strength, that I must desist from 
28 



354 

further effort and seek rest. I retire from the "stump" the less reluctantly' 
because I may now justly claim that I have faithfully tried to do my part, and 
I can confidently learve the rest to the unsubdued and unterrified Democracj and 
its loyal hosts. 

Never were the sound, conservative, conscientious, and stake-holding Repub- 
licans in Virginia, better organized and more aroused than they are at the pre- 
sent time. It has been deserted by a few who left their party for its good ; 
but, in turn, the very flower of the old opposition of Whiggery, respectable in 
times past for its profession of conservatism and its love of law and order 
have chosen to elect Democracy with all the ills they complain of it, rather than 
to fly to those they " knoio not of." 

The jycrsonnel of the party was never more purified, and the numerical majo- 
rity was never larger than it promises to be at the coming election. As in 1801, 
the Democracy stood "like a wall," and rolled back the tide of federalism, so 
now it stands and will roll back the tide of fanaticism ! It will prove itself to 
be the visible invincible ! It is roused, and will rally to the polls 10,000 voters 
more than ever gave the viva voce before ! And the viva voce will rend the 
veil from the " invisible," and defend the freedom and independence of the 
elective franchise and the Constitution and the laws, against the conspiracy of 
the dark lantern. 

It will forbid any power in Virginia to interpose between our conscience and 
our God. 

It will save the Protestant Churches from the pollution of party politics, and 
conserve its powers of truth for the pulling down of strongholds, free from the 
taint and violence of persecution. It will trust in Grod, and defend the Chris- 
tian faith, from Intolerance, and allow poor humanity to indulge in the virtues of 
charity and peace on earth, and good will to all men. 

It will only oppose any " legislative enactment" to interfere with the rights 
of the members of any Church as citizens ; but it will deny the power of the 
Legislature to annul the new Constitution, which has made the act of religious 
freedom irrepealable. That act is now organic law. And the Democratic con- 
servatism will allow no parly nor power to set up a higher law, and say that a 
man shall be burthened, when the Constitution says he shall nut be burtbened, 
for reason of his religious opinion, by being excluded from eligibility to office, 
or by removal from office because of his religion or the place of his birth. 

It will prevent the repudiation of the right of Naturalization, for which the 
nation poured out its blood and treasure, for three years in the second war of 
Independence with Great Britain. 

It will defend the State right to regulate citizenship. 

It will not deny to the' oppressed a home, nor prevent the population "of 
these States" still requiring hundreds of millions of immigrants, who bring 
with them hundreds of millions of money. 

It will allow the poor, as well as the rich, to come and " drink of the waters" 
of liberty freely. And it will remember that all are not criminals whom Euro- 
pean despots call such, and send away from troubling their dominion. It vrill 
take by the hands other criminals besides John Mitchell, and feel for others in 
the prison-houses and dungeons of the Old World besides him who once was 
tenant of Olmutz ! 

It will jealously guard against the Foreign influence which is insidiously sent 
from Exeter Hall in Old Eogland to Williams' Hall in New England, to invade 
America in the name of an " American" party ; and it will watch the oppressor, 
not the oppressed, abroad, as did " Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Jack- 



son 



1" 



It will defend the freedom and independence of the elective franchise against 
the conspiracy which would bind voters by test oaths to reject men of a parti- 
cular religious faith, marked for proscription ; and which would not leave suf- 



355 

frage as free to elect as to reject those whom the constitution and the hiws have 
made eligible to office. 

It will especially guard the office of Governor from the avowed intent to 
wield the appointing power so as not to obey the limitations of qualification for 
office, fixed by the constitution, but to obey rules of appointment establislicd 
by an irresponsible and unauthorized Secret Oligarchy, formed to set up the 
llitjher Law of its own proscription for its own exclusive and selfish ends. 

It will see that the oath itself of the Governor's office is not prevented by 
sectarian bigotry to set up a religious test as a qualification for office. 

It will defend the General Government from the consolidation which would 
establish itself on what is called the independence of Congress. 

It will defend public policy from the faith of the American system, Harbors, 
Rivers, and Pacific Ilailroads, and Protective Tariff's, and Internal Improve- 
ments by the General Government, now again advanced by a Winchester Coun- 
cil of the American party. 

It will defend the State against agrarianism, freesoilism and abolitionism, now 
threatening to invade the South from Northern and non-slaveholding Councils 
of Know Nothiogism. It will defend society against the demoralization of a 
cabal sworn to practice dissimulation and perfidy between man and mac. And 
it will defend religion against the demons of anti-Christ I 

With perfect and abiding confidence in the power of Truth and Democracy — 
of a purified, exalted and triumphant majority for these impregnable positions, 
I go home to Accomac, and await the polls of the people. I cannot do so with- 
out thanking thousands, of the sections of the State through which I have 
passed, for their uniform hospitality, kindness and respect, and without saying 
that the chief gratification with which I part from a daily intercourse with the 
masses of the people is that I have endeavored to sow the seeds of truth only 
in the popular mind, and I trust that they will be fruitful of blessings to indi- 
viduals, to the State and to the country. 

I am, very truly and respectfully, 

Your fellow-citizen, 

HENRY A. WISE. 
Washington City, May 10th, 1855. 



OFFICIAL VOTE OF VIRGINIA. 

Below we give the official vote of' the election in Virginia on the 24th of May 
1855, for Governor, Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General. The returns 
we derive from the office of the Secretary of State ; therefore, they may be 
relied on as nearly correct. The vote of the State for Governor, is 8o,424 for 
jMr. Wise; 7o,244 for Mr. Flournoy — total, 156,068 — majority for Mr. Wise 
10,180. This result vindicates the correctness of our estimate, calculated from 
the unofficial returns. Our table always exhibited Mr. Wise's majority a little 
over 10,000, while estimates from other sources made the majority fall conside- 
rably below that amount. The average Democratic majority in the State, exhi- 
bited by this election, is 11,225 — Mr. Bocock having received the highest, and 
Mr. Pattou the lowest vote : — Enquirer. 



356 



Accomac, 

Albemarle, 

Alexandria^ 

Alleghany, 

Amelia, 

Amherst, 

AppomattoXj 

Augusta, 

Varbour, 

Bath, 

Bedford, 

Berkeley, 

Boone, 

Botetourt, 

Braxton, 

Brooke, 

Brunswick, 

Buckingham, 

Cabell, 

Campbell, 

Caroline, 

Carroll, 

Charles City, 

Charlotte, 

Chesterfield, 

Clarke, 

Craig, 

Cnlpeper, 

Cumberland, 

Dinwiddie, 

Doddridge, 

Elizabeth City, 

Essex, 

Fairfax, 

Fauquier, 

Fayette, 

Floyd, 

Fluvanna, 

Franklin, 

Frederick, 

Giles, 

Gilmer, 

Gloucester, 

Goochland, 

Grayson, 

Greenbriefj 

Greene, 

Greeoesvilie, 



Governor. 


Lt. Governor. 


Att. General. 


W 


^ 


tel 


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^ 


«H 


> 


TO 


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w 

o 


hj 
P 


a 


S3 

5 

o 


o 

o 

B 


o 


o 
a 
ft 


O 


816 


932 


748 


926 


737 


924 


1009 


1220 


1096 


1197 


1095 


1202 


399 


820 


395 


818 


397 


818 


337 


206 


338 


205 


340 


203 


309 


234 


321 


203 


331 


214 


688 


680 


692 


666 


698 


678 


513 


247 


528 


231 


559 


216 


133G 


2426 


1361 


2404 


1360 


2409 


753 


331 


746 


328 


747 


329 


ooo 


276 


220 


274 


220 


273 


1067 


1328 


1105 


1310 


1107 


1308 


923 


905 


920 


905 


923 


904 


21S0 


138 


298 


113 


229 


119 


960 


537 


968 


530 


971 


527 


119 


571 


107 


581 


107 


579 


333 


432 


332 


429 


328 


440 


556 


224 


556 


206 


554 


214 


496 


551 


505 


536 


526 


521 


501 


383 


578 


296 


471 


360 


979 


1535 


1000 


1517 


1018 


1510 


643 


615 


664 


608 


664 


612 


657 


311 


639 


299 


646 


304 


124 


175 


116 


149 


116 


158 


443 


398 


429 


384 


444 


381 


975 


503 


1003 


506 


999 


507 


361 


320 


359 


309 


358 


313 


304 


120 


305 


116 


304 


113 


443 


528 


438 


514 


425 


543 


277 


306 


281 


295 


286 


296 


421 


234 


415 


225 


429 


227 


349 


226 


345 


219 


352 


218 


187 


175 


181 


172 


181 


172 


266 


316 


^72 


305 


275 


308 


512 


631 


500 


612 


500 


608 


920 


1040 


922 


1032 


920 


1035 


.271 


301 


245 


299 


235 


297 


566 


447 


569 


437 


565 


436 


443 


458 


472 


436 


465 


452 


1253 


906 


1265 


893 


1268 


890 


1335 


1203 


1343 


1196 


1344 


1199 


418 


405 


426 


391 


417 


393 


411 


242 


407 


248 


407 


256 


381 


317 


301 


224 


401 


316 


385 


262 


409 


250 


409 


253 


553 


^ 266 


547 


262 


547 


262 


533 


870 


511 


873 


522 


864 


532 


42 


528 


41 


528 


43 


206 


73 


210 


67 


213 


70 



357 



Halifax, 


1163 


587 


1183 


550 


1191 


550 


Hampshire, 


1118 


845 


1126 


835 


1121 


841 


Hanover, 


706 


553 


718 


548 


722 


541 


Hancock, 


221 


291 


220 


290 


218 


282 


Hardy, 


65 1 


708 


649 


693 


648 


692 


Harrison, 


1017 


921 


1014 


916 


1011 


917 


Henrico, 


765 


983 


781 


963 


780 


974 


Henry, 


507 


430 


519 


399 


527 


403 


Highland. 


444 


342 


447 


343 


445 


344 


Isle of Wight, 


669 


173 


670 


165 


675 


162 


Jackson, 


592 


637 


595 


634 


593 


635 


James City, 


44 


126 


39 


130 


39 


129 


Jefferson, 


862 


934 


865 


923 


859 


924 


Kanawha, 


571 


1537 


579 


1517 , 


570 


1529 


King George, 


189 


191 


197 


189 


197 


190 


King William, 


33;{ 


111 


344 


104 


336 


110 


King &, Q,ueen, 


397 


307 


318 


308 


399 


301 


Lancaster, 


143 


175 


149 


154 


152 


168 


Lee, 


1113 


377 


1073 


375 


1073 


374 


Lewis, 


572 


426 


578 


422 


572 


424 


Logan, 


366 


76 


389 


68 


352 


76 


Loudoun, 


690 


2015 


672 


1997 


671 


1994 


Louisa, 


613 


461 


630 


446 


• 632 


455 


Lunenburg, 


465 


201 


475 


195 


483 


191 


Madison, 


672 


109 


657 


104 


647 


117 


Marion, 


1135 


459 


1134 


438 


1132 


440 


Marshall, 


608 


984 


612 


981 


613 


982 


Mason, 


348 


737 


343 


723 


*732 


*336 


Matthews, 


273 


221 


267 


215 


265 


216 


Mecklenburg, 


874 


480 


763 


463 


765 


462 


Mercer, 


417 


350 


390 


343 


375 


344 


Middlesex^ 


231 


180 


234 


175 


234 


176 


Morwongalia, 


1325 


662 


1^25 


657 


1322 


658 


Monroe, 


577 


891 


577 


884 


576 


877 


Montgomery, 


660 


592 


657 


580 


655 


580 


Morgan, 


266 


415 


266 


411 


267 


411 


Nansemond, 


340 


556 


333 


550 


331 


551 


Nelson, 


436 


740 


446 


729 


447 


728 


New Kent, 


175 


201 


175 


195 


175 


196 


Nicholas, 


114 


460 


114 


458 


116 


456 


Norfolk County, 


1068 


1263 


1075 


1254 


1081 


1258 


Northampton, 


235 


288 


222 


281 


222 


282 


Northumberland, 


296 


316 


304 


309 


303 


312 


Nottoway, 


228 • 


187 


229 


152 


230 


160 


Ohio, 


1110 


1741 


1133 


1702 


1105 


1733 


Orange, 


395 


349 


394 


239 


393 


346 


Page, 


1033 


72 


1022 


69 


1022 


69 


Patrick, 


722 


496 


723 


468. 


731 


467 


Pendleton, 


558 


408 


560 


402 


560 


404 


Pittsylvania, 


1335 


1352 


1364 


1313 


1385 


1312 


Pleasants, 


228 


206 


226 


207 


227 


205 


Pocahontas, 


457 


107 


448 


105 


449 


109 


Powhatan, 


287 


152 


293 


144 


292 


149 


Preston, 


798 


737 


803 


730 


805 


729 


Princess Anne, 


307 


325 


313 


319 


312 


821 



358 





Gov] 


ERNOR. 


Lt. Governor. 


Att. 


Gkneral. 




P 


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h 


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h 




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k 


w 


a 


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5 


a 
o 


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o 

B 
g 


t 


a 

o 
o 


o 

B 


Prince Edward, 


427 


355 


428 


337 


435 


334 


Prince George, 


369 


131 


378 


128 


391 


128 


Prince William, 


G59 


249 


665 


246 


664 


244 


Pulaski, 


305 


272 


306 


269 


306 


269 


Putnam, 


393 


387 


390 


380 


392 


384 


Raleigh, 


80 


259 


78 


258 


75 


258 


Randolph, 


433 


308 


430 


289 


413 


296 


Rappahannock, 


490 


485 


493 


477 


491 


481 


Richmond, 


104 


364 


166 


364 


167 


364 


Ritchie, 


488 


353 


492 


349 


485 


348 


Roanoke, 


600' 


307 


605 


304 


605 


301 


Rockbridcre, 


1147 


1206 


1161 


1184 


1163 


1190 


Rockingham, 


2700 


610 


2681 


584 


2681 


609 


Russell, 


989 


580 


983 


575 


9S2 


574 


Scott, 


797 


509 


792 


503 


794 


494 


Shenandoah, 


2031 


185 


2032 


171 


2032 


176 


Smyth, 


654 


571 


649 


564 


648 


566 


Southampton, 


56S 


486 


580 


488 


582 


487 


Spotsylvania, 


619 


604 


630 


598 


626 


503 


Stafford, 


474 


359 


470 


359 


470 


359 


Surry, 


230 


141 


220 


136 


230 


137 


Sussex, 


381 


100 


376 


96 


379 


98 


Taylor, 


487 


465 


484 


461 


485 


460 


Tazewell, 


1J02 


189 


1049 


176 


1053 


172 


Tyler, 


430 


360 


434 


355 


437 


. 348 


Upshur, 


496 


286 


498 


281 


495 


2«4 


Warren, 


500 


271 


438 


265 


499 


265 


Warwick, 


21 


57 


19 


53 


19 


53 


Washington, 


1284 


948 


1281 


949 


1281 


947 


W\iyne, 


347 


319 


410 


238 


252 


221 


Westmoreland, 


83 


395 


88 


395 


91 


393 


Wetzel, 


549 


80 


532 


79 


532 


79 


Wirt, 


259 


217 


263 


213 


261 


210 


Wood, 


747 


839 


642 


885 


635 


902 


Wyoming, 


82 


116 


83 


112 


80 


113 


Wythe, 


829 


724 


838 


704 


830 


710 


York, 


109 


169 


93 " 


157 


94 


158 


Norfolk City, 


552 


922 


517 


901 


478 


887 


Petersburg, 


783 


747 


790 


733 


787 


743 


Richmond City, 


1166 


2144 


1180 


2117 


1189 


2126 


W^illiamsburg, 


51 


66 


47 


65 


48 


66 



83,424 73,244 83,063 71,689 83,731 71,613 



359 



RECAPITULATION. 



Wise, - - - - - 83.424 

Flournoy, . , - - - 73,244 

Majority, - - - - 10,180 

McComas, ----- 83,068 

Beale, - - - - " 71,689 

Majority, - - - - 11,379 

Bocock, . - - - - 83,731 

Patton, - - - - - 71,613 

Majority, _ - - - 12,118 



It is proper to add here, however, that the count of this vote which was sub- 
sequently made by the Legislature, under the requirement of the constitution, 
did not result precisely as exhibited by the foregoing table. The Legislative 
computation exhibited the following results : 

STATE SENATORS ELECTED IN 1855. 

From Rocljingham and Pendleton — Geo. E. Deneale, D. 

From Sussex, Southampton and Greensville — W. W. Cobb, D. 

From Dinwiddie, Amelia and Brunswick — Wm. F. Thompson, D. 

From Lunenburg, Nottoway, and Prince Edward — Thos. H. Campbell, D. 

From Pittsylvania — W. H. Wooding, D. 

From Henry, Patrick, and Franklin — Archibald Stuart, D. 

From Hanover and Henrico — Chastain White, D. 

From Gloucester, Matthews, and Middlesex — John W. Catlett, D. 

From King and Queen, King William, and Essex — Beverly B. Douglass, D. 

From Stafford, King George, and Prince William — J. M. Taliaferro, D. 

From Madison, Culpeper, Orange, and Greene — Thomas N. Welch, D. 

From Louisa, Goochland, and Fluvanna — Wm. M. Ambler, D. 

From Jefferson and Berkeley — Francis Yates, D. 

From Frederick, Clarke, and Warren — Oliver R. Funsten, D. 

From Bath, Highland, and Rockbridge — James PL Paxton, D. 

From Carroll, Floyd, Grayson, Montgomery, and Pulaski — Harvey Des- 
kins, D. 

From Smythe, Wythe, and Washington — Thomas M. Tate, D. 

From Mason, Jackson, Cabell, Wayne, and Wirt — Fleet W. Smith, K. N. 

From Wetzel, Marshall, Marion, and Tyler — James G. West, D. 

From Monongalia, Preston, and Taylor — J. B. Huddleson, D. 

From Accomac and Northampton — 0. B. Finney, K. N. 

From Norfolk and Princess Anne — P. H. Daughtrey, K. N. 

From Campbell and Appomattox — Thomas H. Flood, K. N. 

From Loudoun — Noble S. Braden, K. N. 

From Boone, Logan, Kanawha, Putnam, and Wyoming — Andrew S. Parks, 
K.N. 



360 

SENATORS ELECTED IN 1853. 

From Norfolk City— W. N. McKenney, K. N. 

From Isle of Wight, Nansemond and Surry — W. J. Arthur, D. 

From Petersburg and Prince George — J. A. Joues, D. 

From Powhatan, Cumberland and Chesterfield — Wm. Old, Jr. D. 

From Mecklenburg and Charlotte — L. W. Tazewell, K. N. 

From Halifax — 11. Logan, D. 

From Bedford — J. F. Johnson, K. N. 

From Williamsburg, James City, Charles City, New Kent, York, Elizabeth 
City and Warwick — Robert Saunders, K. N. 

From Richmond City— 0. P. Baldwin, K. N. 

From Richmond, Lancaster, Northumberland and Westmoreland — Elliott M. 
Braxton, D. 

From Caroline and Spottsylvania — Wm. A Moncure, D. 

From Fairfax and Alexandria — Henry W. Thomas, K. N. 

From Fauquier and Rappahannock — J. K. Marshall, K. N. 

From Albemarle — B. F. Randolph, D. 

From Amherst, Nelson and l^uckingham — R. K. Irving, K. N. 

From Hampshire, Hardy and Morgan — J. C. B. Mullen, K. N. 

From Shenandoah and Page — T. Buswell, J). 

From Augusta — C. R. Harris, D. 

From Botetourt, Alleghany, Roanoke and Craig — Douglas B. Layne, D. 

From Mercer, Monroe, Giles and Tazewell — Manlius Chapman, D. 

From Scott, Lee and Russell— J. F. McElhany, K. N. 

From Nicholas, Fayette, Pocahontas, Raleigh, Braxton and Greenbrier — T. 
Creigh, K. N. 

From Ritchie, Doddridge, Harrison, Pleasants and Wood — U. M. Turner, 
K.N. 

From Upsher, Barbour, Lewis, Gilmer and Randolph — Albert G. Roger, D. 

From Brooke, Hancock and Ohio — L. Steenrod, D. 

MEMBERS OP THE HOUSE OF DELEGATES OF VIRGINIA ELECTED MAY, 1855. 

Accomac — Arthur Watson, K. N. 

Albemarle — Thomas Wood, K. N., and Wm. T. Early, K. N. 
Alexandria — Lawrence B. Taylor, K. N. 
Alleghany and Bath — Samuel Carpenter, D. 
Amelia and Nottoway — AV. F. C. Gregory, D. 
Amherst — Dudley Davies, K. N. 
Appomattox — C. H. Jones, D. 

Augusta — Adam McChesney, K. N.; A. Bolivar Christian, K. N.; John D. 
Imboden, K. N. 

Barbour — Joseph Daniels, D. 

Bedford— W. M. Burwell, K. N.; Samuel P. R. Moorman, K. N. 

Berkeley — J. B. Hoge, D.; R. D. Seaman, D. *• 

Botetourt and Craig— F. H. Mays, D.; Robert M. Wiley, D. 

Braxton and Nicholas — Marshall Triplett, K. N. 

Brooke and Hancock — 0. W. Langfitt, K. N. 

Brunswick — Edward Dromgoole, D. 

Buckingham — Thos. M. Boudurant, K. N. 

Cabell— H. J. Samuels, D. 

Campbell— F. B. Deane, K. N.; M. B. NowHn, K. N. 

Caroline — Daniel C. Dejarnette, D. 

Carroll — John Carroll, D. 

Charles City, James City and New Kent — Wm. Bush, K. N. 



361 

Charlotte— Jos. H. Roberts, D. 

Cbestcrfield — Jeremiah Ilobbs, D. 

Cliuko — Buckner Ashby, D. 

Culpeper — Perry J. Kggboru, K. N. 

Ouiiborland and Powhatan — W. P. Dabney, D. 

Dinwiddie — John J. Crawford, D. 

Doddridge and Tyler — Ab.«y George, D. 

Elizabeth City, Warwick, York and Williamsburg — Joseph Segar, K. N, 

E.<sex and King and Queen — M. 11. H. Garnett, D, 

Fairfax — James Thrift, K. N. 

Fau((uier — Bailey Shumate, K. N.; Richard H. Carter, K. N. 

Payette and Raleigh — Wm. Tyree, K. N. 

Floyd— Pleasant Ilowell, D. 

Fluvanna— Geo. P. Holman, J). 

Franklin — Wm. II. Edwards, D.; Peter Hancock, D. 

Frederick— R. C. By waters, B.; G. P. Baker, D. 

Giles — A. G. Pendleton, D. 

Gilmer and Wirt— P. Hays, D. 

Gloucester — Warner T. Jones, D. 

Goochland — John C. Rutherfoord, D. 

Grayson — John Dickinson, D. 

Greenbrier — A. G. Davis, K. N. 

Greene and Orange — John H. Lee, D. 

Greensville and Susses — Wm. T. Lundy, D. 

Halifax— J. H. Edmunds, D.; Chas. Craddoek, D. 

Hampshire — Asa Hiett, D.j Isaac Parsons, D. 

Hanover — Wm. Nelson, D. 

Hardy— F. B. Welton, D. 

Harrison — Robert Johnson, D.; A. S. Holden, D. 

Henrico — Henry Cox, K. N. 

Henry — A. Hughes Dillard, D. 

Highland— A. H. Byrd, D. 

Isle of Wight— Jas. F. Crocker, D. 

Jackson— W. P. Frost, K. N. 

Jefferson— Wells J. Hawks, D.; T. Harris Towner, K. N. 

Kanawha — John Thompson, K. N., (dead) B. H. Smith, K. N. 

King George and Stafford — John Seddon, D. 

King William — Harrison B. Tomlin, D. 

Lancaster and Northumberland — W. H. Harding, K. N. 

Lee— Job B. Crabtree, D.; Dr. H. Riggs, D. 

Lewis — John Brannon, D. 

Logan, Boone and Wyoming — J. II. Anderson, D. 

Louisa — Jos. K. Pendleton, D, 

Loudoun— H. B. Powell, K. N.; R. L. Wright, K. N. 

Lunenburg — George W. Hardy, D. 

Madison — James L. Kemper, D. 

Marion — John S. Barnes, D. ; LTlysses N. Arnett, D. 

Marshall— R. C. Hollady, K. N. 

Mason— G. B. Thomas. K. N. 

Matthews and Middlesex — Geo. L. Nicholson, D. 

Mecklenburg — Wm. E. Dodson, D. 

Mercer — N. French, K. N. 

Monongalia — J. Lantz, D.; R. W. Caruthers, D. 

Monroe — Alexander Clark, K. N.; Alexander D. HayncS; K*. N. 

Montgomery — C. A. Ronald, D. 

Morgan — Lemuel Vanorsdall, K. N. 



362 

Nansemond — Natbl. Riddick, K. N. 
Nelson— W. M. Cabeli, K. N. 
Norfolk City— W. D. Roberts, K. N. 

Norfolk County— C. W. Murdauf^b, K. N.; Max. Herbert, K. N. 
Nortbampton — E. J. Spady, K. N. 

Obio— Jas. Paul, K. N.; Jobn Brady, K. N.; G. L. Cranmer, K. N. 
Page — Mann Spitler, D. 
Patrick— Wra. A. Burwell, D. 
Pendleton — Jas. B. Kee, D. 
Petersburg — J. H. Claiborne, D. 

Pittsylvania — Ricbard M. Kirby, D.; Thomas W. Walton, D. 
Pleasants and Ritcbie — John Collins, D. 
Pocahontas — Adam Nottingham, D. 
Preston— J. A. F. Martin, D.; E. T. Brandon, D. 
Prince Edward — Thomas T. Tredway, D. 
Prince George and Surry — Benj. C. Drew, D. 
Princess Anne — John Woodhouse, K. N. 
Prince William — Chas. E. Sinclair, D. 
Pulaski — Jobn S. Draper, D. 
Putnam — Ro. N. B. Thon)p.son, D. 
Randolph — S. Boswortb,K. N. 
Rappahannock — Edward T. Jones, D. 

Richmond City— H. K. Ellyson, K. N.; H. B. Dickinson, K. N.; R. C. 
Stanard, K. N. 

Richmond County and Westmoreland — L. C. Berkeley, K. N. 

Roanoke — Colin Bass, D. 

Rockbridge — R. L. Doyle, K. N.; A. Patterso^, K. N. 

Rockingham — J. M. R. Sprinkle, D.; J. G. Brown, D.; Wm. B. Yancey, D. 

Russell— G. W. Chandler, D.; Kelley, D. 

Scott— J. T. Mclver, D. 

Shenandoah — J. S. Calvert, D.; P. Pitman, D. 

Smyth— Thos. L. Preston, D. 

Southampton — J. W. Gurley, D. 

Spottsylvania — Oscar M. Crutchfield, D. 

Taylor— Chas. W. Newlon, D. 

Tazewell — Wm. M. Gillespie, D. 

Upshur Carper, D. 

Warren — Samuel W. Thomas, D. 

Washington— Wm. K. Heiskell, D.; John B. Floyd, D. 

Wayne — Jeremiah Wellman, D. 

Wetzel— David West, D. 

W^ood — A. J. Bowman, K. N. 

Wythe — David Graham, D. 



THE 24TII DAY OF MAY IN VIRGINIA, IN 1855. 

! On the 24tb day of May 1855, the great battle between the North and the 
South was fought on the soil of Virginia. Virginia was the battle ground upon 
•which that fell-destroyer, abolition Know Nothing fanaticism, was " crushed 
out" in pushing its direful inroads upon the sunny South. It was herein Virgi- 
nia that the British lion crouched in servile obedience beneath the golden wings of 
Washington's eagle. And it was here in Virginia, that the foul and loathsome 



363 

cockatrice, Know Nothingism, crouched (spaniel like) beneath the patriotic tread 
of the sturdy husbandman, the stigmatising lash, the burning invective and 
withering satire of that champion of States llights, and defender of the consti- 
tution and of civil and religious liberty — Henry A. Wise.\ And it is here in 
Virginia, that we intend to keep spotless that rich legacy of political policy, 
bequeathed to us by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. The Democracy 
of Virginia will, at all times, and under all circumstances, fly their colors. 
Our platform is now, as it has ever been, a strict observance of the tenets of 
States llights. We know no section, no clique, no party, no platform, no man, — 
but only the States Rights flag left us by Jefi'erson and Madison, which we 
expect to live under, fight under, and die under. We bid defiance to the wooden 
horse. Our banner in envied grandeur still floats over the impregnable ramparts 
of Truth, Right and Justice, and will continue to flaunt its asgis folds until the 
bird of liberty, with the stars and stripes around its neck, shall wing itself from 
the western continent. 

I The 4th of July commemorates the day on which the American people repu- 
diated the British yoke ; the 24th of May commemorates the day on which the 
PEOPLE, THE DEMOCRACY OF VIRGINIA, REPUDIATED THAT 
WHICH WAS WORSE THAN BRITISH BONDAGE— Know Nothingism. 
The 24th day of May 1855 is a second declaration of the citizens of Virginia, 
TO BE FREE AND INDEPENDENT. May the day ever live as one of our 
proudest epochs, in the hearts of all true lovers of Civil and Religious Liberty. 



From the Richmond Examiner, May 29th, 1355. 
THE DEMOCRATIC TRIUMPH. 

The election returns which fill our columns this morning will give to our 
readers the details of that crushing and utterly annihilating victory which the 
Democracy have won over their boastful, exultant and secret adversary. We 
have swept the State like a mountain torrent, deluging every culvert, and 
drowning Know Nothing candidates of every rank and degree, from Flournoy 
down to Sam's candidates for the stray coroner's and constable's places of the 
State. The Democratic legions are triumphant from the mountains to the sea- 
shore, and the Democratic shouts of victory are heard in every valley and 
mountain of the State. Our candidate for Governor is probably elected by a 
splendid majority of at least twelve thousand, we have returned our unbroken 
phalanx of Democratic Congressmen, and we shall have a larger Democratic 
majority than usual in both branches of the Legislature. 

There remains not one peg for Sam to hang a hope upon. The deluge has 
left no dry place for the weary feet of tac conquered ; and the few Know No- 
things who have been elected to the Legislature already feel their laurels with- 
ering upon their brows, and burning them like a hot iron. The boasting, blus- 
tering, menacing, confident foe, who but yesterday proclaimed the speedy de- 
struction of the Democratic party of Virginia, has been routed at the ballot-box 
by that noble old party which, in this State, has never known defeat. The 
great highway along which we have marched to greatness and renown is paved 
with the bones of just such political monstrosities as that which we slew on 
Thursday. It is as much the duty and the mission of the Virginia Democracy 



364 

to slay parties like Sam, as it was that of Hercules to kill giants, dragons hy- 
dras and other monsters. Wo have done our duty, and freed the republic from 
the consequences of sectional strife and a fearful war of races. 

We care not how Sam, like a huge decapitated serpent, may squirm, twist 
and struggle in the free States. He may lash his huge tail in New England, 
and jerk and wriggle his headless trunk in Pennsylvania, but all the world 
knows that on Thursday last his head was taken off with a dexterity and scien- 
tific precision which the Virginia Democracy have only acquired by long prac- 
tice. A few months ago the late Samuel entered this State, took possession of 
our culverts, and hissed forth various and sundry decrees for the overthrow of 
Democracy, Catholicism, and the annoyance of the quiet, inoffensive foreigners 
of this State. But in performing a tilt against the Democracy, he ran against 
a snag, and expired on Thursday last, having lived just long enough to bury 
one small grave-digger, and extinguish an humble gas-man. The election has 
demonstrated that Know Nothingism, in its best days in this State, was nothing 
but a mild, small beer type of that poor, collapsed old Whig party, which we 
have beaten with commendable regularity for many years past. The mysteries 
and secrecy of Know Nothingism concealed not its strength, but its weakness 
in numbers and resources. 

We notice the election and re-election of many of the ablest men of our 
party to the Legislature. In such men as Floyd, Crutchfield, Edmunds, Ruth- 
erfoord, Garnett, and many others whom we might name, our readers will recog- 
nize men well suited for the important duties of legislation next winter. 

We have but one regret as far as the result in this State is concerned, and 
that is the defeat of that estimable gentleman and distinguished and indefatiga- 
ble Democrat, Robert A. Mayo, of Henrico. To that gentleman's energy and 
sleepless activity, we are indebted for a reduction of hundreds in what was at 
one time the Know Nothing strength in Henrico, His services will be long 
remembered by his party. 

We commend the gentlemanly good humor and philosophy of our neighbor 
of the Whifj to the subordinate journals of the Know Nothings. The Demo- 
crats are not to be provoked or annoyed by the impotent exhibitions of childish 
rage and frenzy of the minor organs of that party to which they have just ad- 
ministered a well-deserved spanking. We tender to our chivalrous neighbor of 
the ]V7u'g our sincere condolences, and venture to express the hope that its trip 
to Salt River may be both pleasant and instructive. The season is a delightful 
one for going to the country, and the thousand beauties of Spring, with its 
flowers and balmy breezes, will soon assuage the grief of our friend and neighbor. 
We have learnt also, from a most reliable source, that our venerable prote;/e, 
Botts, bears the defeat of Mr. Scott with a degree of fortitude worthy of a 
christian and a philosopher. He is, we learn, busily qualifying himself for the 
ministry, having announced at the African Church on Tuesday last, the scope 
and character of his recent theological studies. 



SPEECH or HON. S. A. DOUGLAS, OF ILLINOIS. 

IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE, MARCH 3, 1854, ON NEBRAS- 
KA AND KANSAS. 

Mr. Houston. It is now half-pa.st eleven o'clock. I cannot see any particu- 
lar neces.sity for going on to-night, and therefore we might as well adjourn. 

Several Senators. No, no. 

Mr. Houston. Then I give notice that I shall take the floor after the sena- 
tor from Illinois gets through. 

Mr. Sumner. Before the debate closes, I hope to be heard on sotne points. 

Mr. Douglas. We shall hear the senator from Massachusetts, of course, 
upon whatever points he may desire to speak. I would gladly have agreed to^ 
an arrangement by which it should have been understood that the vote would 
be taken'at any fixed time; but we found it impossible to come to an agree- 
ment to fix any day or any hour on which the vote should, by common consent, 
be taken. Consequently we have thought it was better to insist upon proceed- 
ing to a vote to-night. I will not occupy the attention of the Senate longer 
than I can possibly help in doing justice to myself. 

Mr. Houston. Objection has been made to my course it seems, because I 
evinced a disinclination to consent to fix any particular day for the closing of 
the debate. I did not see any necessity for doing so, and therefore I could not 
consent to it. I do not care how soon the debate closes ; I hope it will be con- 
cluded speedily ; but I do not wish to have it done informally, nor in the hur- 
ried manner in which it has been pressed on the Senate. I claim all the privi- 
leges of a senator; but I am perfectly willing to consent to an adjournment, or 
any other arrangement which the Senate may make. I am iu a minority, but I 
shall yield to the will of the Senate. 

Mr. Douglas. I think there seems to be a pretty good disposition manifested 
now, and we shall be able to close the debate and proceed to the vote in a very 
short time. 

Mr. President, before I proceed to the general argument upon the most im- 
portant branch of this question, I must say a few words in reply to the senator 
from Tennessee, fMr. Bell,] who has spoken upon the bill to-day. He ap- 
proves of the principles of the bill^ he thinks they have great merit; but he 
does not see his way entirely clear to vote for the bill, because of the objections 
which he has stated, most of which relate to the Indians. 

Upon that point, I desire to say that it has never been the custom in territo- 
rial bills to make regulations concerning the Indians within the limits of the 
proposed Territories. All matters relating to them it has been thought wise to 
leave to subsequent legislation, to be brought forward by the Committee on In- 
dian Affairs. I did venture originally in this bill to put in one or two provi- 



366 

sions upon that subject ; but, at the suggestion of many senators on both sides 
of the chamber, they were stricken out, in order to allow the appropriate com- 
mittee of the Senate to take charge of that subject. I think, therefore, since 
we have stricken from the bill all those provisions which pertain to the lodians, 
and reserved the whole subject for the consideration and action of the appro- 
priate committee, we have obviated every possible objection which could reason- 
ably be urged upon that score. 'We have every reason to hope and trust that 
the Committee on Indian Affairs will propose such measures as will do entire 
justice to the Indians, without contravening the objects of Congress in organiz- 
ing these Territories. 

But, sir, allusion has been made to certain Indian treaties, and it has been inti- 
mated, if not charged in direct terras, that we were violating the stipulations of 
those treaties in respect to the rights and lands of the Indians. The senator 
from Texas [Mr. Houston] made a very long and interesting speech on that 
subject; but it so happened, that most of the treaties to which he referred 
were with Indians not included within the limits of this bill. We have been 
informed, in the course of the debate to-day, by the chairman of the Commit- 
tee on Indian Affairs, [Mr. Sebastian,] that there is but one treaty in existence 
relating to lands or Indians within the limits of either of the proposed Territo- 
ries, and that is the treaty with the Ottawa Indians, about two hundred persons 
in number, owning about thirty-four thousand acres of land. Thus it appears, 
that the whole argument of injustice to the red man, which in the course of 
this debate has called forth so much sympathy and indignation, is confined to 
two hundred Indians, owning less than two townships of land. Now, sir, is it 
possible that a country, said to be five hundred thousand square miles in extent, 
and large enough to make twelve such States as Ohio, is to be consigned to per- 
petual barbarism merely on account of that small number of Indianf?, when the 
bill itself" expressly provides that those Indians and their lands are not to be in- 
cluded within the limits of the proposed Territories, nor to be subject to 
their laws or jurisdiction ? I would not allow this measure to invade the rights 
of even one Indian, and hence I inserted in the first section of the bill that 
none of the tribes with whom we have treaty stipulations should be embraced 
within either of the Territories, unless such Indians shall voluntarily consenb 
to be included therein by treaties hereafter to be made. If any senator can 
furnish me with language more explicit, or which would prove more effectual in 
securing the rights of the Indians, I will cheerfully adopt it. 

Well, sir, the Senator from Tennessee, in a very kind spirit, here raises the 
objection for me to answer, that this bill includes Indians within the limits of 
these Territories with whom we have no treaties; and he desires to know what 
wc are to do with them. I will say to him, that that is not a matter of inquiry 
which necessarily or properly arises upon the passage of this bill; that is not 
a proper inquiry to come before the Committee on Territories. You have in all 
your territorial bills included Indians within the boundaries of the Territories. 
When you erected the Territory of Minnesota, you had not extinguished the 
Indian title to one foot of land in that Territory west of the Mississippi river, 
and to the major part of that Territory the Indian title remains unextinguished 
to this day. In addition to those wild tribes, you removed Indians from ^Vis- 
consin and located them within Minnesota since the Territory was organized. 
It will be a question for the consideration of the Committee on Indian Affairs, 
and for the action of Congress, when, in settlement and civilization, it shall be- 
come necessary to change the present policy in respect to the Indians. When 
you erected the territorial government of Oregon, a few years ago, you em- 
braced within it all the Indians living in the Territory without their consent, 
and without any such reservations in their behalf as are contained in this bill. 
You had not at that time made a treaty with those Indians, nor extinguished 
their title to an acre of land in that Territory, nor indeed have you done so to 



367 

this day. So it is in the organization of Washington Torritory. Yon ran the 
lines around the country -vjhich you thought ought to be within the limits of 
the Territory, and you embraced all the Indians within those lines ; but you 
made no provision in respect to their rights or lands; you left that matter to 
the Committee on Indian Affairs, to the Indian laws, and to the proper depart- 
ment, to be arranged afterwards as the public interests might require. The 
same is true in reference to Utah and New Mexico. 

In fact, the policy provided for in this bill, in respect to the Indians, is that 
which is now in force in every one of the Territories. Therefore, any senator 
who objects to this bill on that score should have objected to and voted against 
every territorial bill which you .have now in existence. Yet my friend from 
Texas has taken occasion to remind the Senate several times that it was a mat- 
ter of pride — and it ought to be a matter of patriotic pride with him — that he 
voted for every measure of the compromise of 1850, including the Utah and 
New Mexico territorial bills, embracing all the Indians within their limits. ]My 
friend from Tennessee, too, has been very liberal in voting for most of the ter- 
ritorial bills ; and I therefore trust that the same patriotic and worthy motives 
which induced him to vote for the territorial act of 1850 will enable him to give 
his support to the present bill, especially as he approves of the great principle 
of popular sovereignty upon which it rests. 

The senator from Tennessee remarked further, that the proposed limits of 
these two Territories were too extensive, that they were large enough to be 
erected into eight ditFerent States ; and why, he asked, the necessity of includ- 
ing such a vast amount of country within the limits of these two Territories ? 
I must remind the senator that it has always been the practice to include a large 
extent of country within one territory, and then to subdivide it from time to 
time as the public interest might require. Such was the case with the old 
Northwest Territory. It was all originally included within one territorial gov- 
ernment. Afterwards Ohio was cut off; and then Indiana, Michigan, Illi- 
nois, and Wisconsin, were successively erected into separate territorial govern- 
ments, and subsequently admitted into the Union as States. 

At one period, it will be remembered, the Territory of Wisconsin included 
the country embraced within the limits of the States of Wisconsin and Iowa, 
and a part of the State of Michigan, and the Territory of Minnesota. There 
is country enough within the Territory of Minnesota to make two or three States 
of the size of New York. Washington Territory embraces about the same 
area. Oregon is large enough to make three or four States as extensive as 
Pennsylvania, Utah two or three, and New Mexico four or five of like dimen- 
sions. Indeed, the whole country embraced within the proposed Territories 
of Nebraska and Kansas, together with the States of Arkansas, Missouri, and 
Iowa, and the larger part of Minnesota, and the whole of the Indian country 
west of Arkansas, once constituted a territorial government, under the name of 
the Missouri Territory. In view of this course of legislation upon the subject 
of territorial organization, commencing before the adoption of the Constitution 
of the United States and coming down to the last session of Congress, it surely 
cannot be said that there is anything unusual or extraordiaary in the size of the 
proposed Territory, which should compel a senator to vote against the bill, while 
he approves of the principles involved in the measure. 

It has also been urged in debate that there is no necessity for these territo- 
rial organizations ; and I have been called upon to point out any public and na- 
tional considerations which require action at this time. Senators seem to forget 
that our immense and valuable possessions on the Pacific are separated from the 
States and organized Territories, on this side of the Rocky mountains by a vast 
wilderness, filled by hostile savages;- that nearly a hundred thousand emigrants 
pass through this barbarous wilderness every year, on their way to California 
and Oregon ; that these emigrants are American citizens, our own constituents, 



S68 

•who are entitled to the protection of law and government ; and that they are 
left to make their way, as best they may, without the protection or aid of law 
or government. 

The United States mails for New Mexico and Utah, and all official communi- 
cations between this government and the authorities of those Territories, are 
required to be carried over these wild plains, and through the gorges of the 
mountains, where you have made no provision for roads, bridges, or ferries to 
facilitate travel, or forts or other means of safety to protect life. As often as I 
have brought forward and urged the adoption of measures to remedy these evils, 
and afford security against the dangers to which our people are constantly ex- 
posed, they have been promptly voted down as not being of sufficient impor- 
tance to command the favorable consideration of Congress. Now, when I pro- 
pose to organize the Territories, and allow the people to do for themselves what 
you have so often refused to do for them, I am told that there are not white in- 
habitants enough permanently settled in the country to require and sustain a 
government. True there is not a very large population there, for the very good 
reason that your Indian code and intercourse laws exclude the settlers, and for- 
bid their remaining there to cultivate the soil. You refuse to throw the country 
open to settlers, and then object to the organization of the Territories upon the 
ground that there is not a sufficient number of inhabitants. 

The senator from Connecticut [Mr. Smith] has made a long argument to 
prove that there are no inhabitants in the proposed Territories, because nearly 
all of those who have gone and settled there have done so in violation of cer- 
tain old acts of Congress which forbid the people to take possession of and 
settle upon the public lands until after they should be surveyed and brought 
into market. 

I do not propose to discuss the question whether tliose settlers are technically 
leeal inhabitants or not. It is enough for me that they are a part of our own 
people; that they are settled on the public domain; that the public interests 
would be promoted by throwing that public domain open to settlement ; and 
that there is no good reason why the protection of law and the blessings of 
government should not be extended to them. I must be permitted to remind 
the senator that the same objection existed in its full force to Minnesota, to 
Oregon and to Washington, when each of those Territories were organized ; 
and that I have no recollection that he deemed it his duty to call the attention 
of Congress to the objection, or considered it of sufficient importance to justify 
him in recording his own vote against the organization of either of those Ter- 
ritories. 

Mr. President, I do not feel called upon to make any reply to the argument 
which the senator from Connecticut has urged against the passage of this bill 
upon the score of expense in sustaining these territorial governments, for the 
reason that, if the public interests require the enactment of the law, it follows 
as a natural consequence that all the expenses necessary to carry it into effect 
are wise and proper. 

I will now proceed to the consideration of the great principles involved in the 
bill, without omitting, however, to notice some of those extraneous matters 
which have been brought into this discussion with the view of producing ano- 
ther anti-slavery agitation. We have been told by nearly every senator who 
has spoken in opposition to this bill, that at the time of its introduction the 
people were in a state of profound quiet and repose ; that the anti-slavery agi- 
tation had entirely ceased; and that the whole country was acquiescing cheer- 
fully and cordially in the compromise measures of 1850 as a final adjustment of 
this vexed question. 

Sir, it is truly refreshing to hear senators, who contested every inch of ground 
in opposition to those measures when they were under discussion, who predicted 
all manner of evils and calamities from their adoption, and who raised the cry 



369 

of repeal, and even resistence, to their execution, after they had become the 
laws of the land — I say it is really refreshing to hear these same senators now 
bear their united testimony to the wisdom of those measures, and to the pa- 
triotic motives which induced us to pass them in defiance of their threats and 
resistance, and to their bcQeficial efl'ects in restoring ])eacc, harmony, and fra- 
ternity to a distracted country. These are precious confessions from the lips of 
those who stand pledged never to assent to the propriety of those measures, and 
to make war upon them so long as they shall remain upon the statute-book. 
I well understand that these confessions are now made, not with the view of 
yielding their assent to the propriety of carrying those enactments into faithful 
execution, but for the ptirpose of having a pretext for charging upon me, as the 
author of this bill, the responsibility of an agitation which they are striving to 
produce. They say that I, and not they, have revived the agitation. What 
have I done to render me obnoxious to this charge ? They say I wrote and in- 
troduced this Nebraska bill. That is true ; but I was not a volunteer in the 
transaction. The Senate, by a unanimous vote, appointed me chairman of the 
territorial committee, and associated five intelligent and patriotic senators with 
me, and thus made it our duty to take charge of all territorial business. la 
like manner, and with the concurrence of these complaining senators, the Se- 
nate referred to us a distinct proposition to organize this Nebraska Territory, 
and required us to report specifically upon the question. I repeat, then, we 
were not volunteers in this business. The duty was imposed upon us by the 
Senate. We were not unmindful of the delicacy and responsibility of the posi- 
tion. We were aware that from 1820 to 1850 the abolition doctrine of con- 
gressional interference witli slavery in the Territories and new States had so far 
prevailed as to keep up an incessant slavery agitation in Congress, and through- 
out the country, whenever any new Territory was to be acquired or organized. 
We were also aware that, in 1850, the right of the people to decide this ques- 
tion for themselves, subject only to the Constitution, was substituted for the 
doctrine of congressional intervention. The first question, therefore, which the 
committee were called upon to decide, and indeed the only question of any ma- 
terial importance, in framing this bill, was this : Shall we adhere to and carry 
out the principle recognized by the compromise measures of 1850, or shall we 
go back to the old exploded doctrine of congressional interference, as establish- 
ed in 1820, in a large portion of the country, and which it was the object of 
the Wilmot proviso to give a universal application, not only to all the territory 
which we then possessed, but all which we might hereafter acquire ? There 
were no other alternatives. We were compelled to frame the bill upon the one 
or the other of these two principles. The doctrine of 1820 or the doctrine of 
1850 must prevail. In the discharge of the duty imposed upon us by the Se- 
nate, the committee could not hesitate upon this point, whether we consulted 
our individual opinions and principles or those which were known to be enter- 
tained and boldly avowed by a large majority of the Senate. The two great 
political parties of the country stood solemnly pledge 1 before the world to ad- 
here to the compromise measures of 1850, "in principle and substance." A 
large majority of the Senate, indeed every member of the body, I believe, ex- 
cept the two avowed abolitionists, [Mr. Chase and Mr. Sumner] profess to be- 
long to the one or the other of these parties, and hence was supposed to be un- 
der a high moral obligation to carry out the " principle and substance" of those 
measures in all new territorial organizations. The report of the committee 
was in accordance with this obligation. I am arraigned, therefore, for having 
endeavored to represent the opinions and principles of the Senate truly ; for 
having performed my duty in conformity with the parliamentary law; for having 
been faithful to the trust reposed in me by the Senate. Let the vote this night 
determine whether I have thus faithfully represented your opinions. When a 
majority of the Senate shall have passed the bill; when a majority of the 
24 



370 

States shall bave endorsed it through their representatives upon this floor j 
when a majority of the South and a majority of the North shall have sanc- 
tioned it; when a majority of the Whig party and a majority of the Democra- 
tic party shall have voted for it, v?hen each of these propositions shall be de- 
monstrated by the vote this night on the final passage of the bill, I shall be 
willing to submit the question to the country, whether, as the organ of the 
committee, I performed my duty in the report and bill which have called down 
upon my head so much denunciation and abuse. 

Mr. President, the opponents of this measure have had much to say about 
the mutations and modifications which this bill has undergone since it was first 
introduced by myself, and about the alleged departure of the bill, in its present 
form, from the principle laid down in the original report of the committee as a 
rule of action in all future territorial organizations. Fortunately there is no 
necessity, even if your patience would tolerate such a course of argument at 
this late hour of the night, for me to examine these speeches in detail, and to 
reply to each charge separately. Each speaker seems to have followed faith- 
fully in the footsteps of his leader — iu the path marked out by the abolitiou 
confederates in their manifesto, which I exposed on a former occasion. You 
have seen them on their winding way, meandering the narrow and crooked path 
in Indian file, each treading close upon the heels of the other, and neither ven- 
turing to take a step to the right or left, or to occupy one inch of ground which 
did not bear the foot-print of the abolition champion. To answer one, there- 
fore, is to answer the whole. The statement to which they seem to attach the 
most importance, and which they have repeated oftener perhaps than any other, 
is, that, pending the compromise measures of 1850, no man in or out of Con- 
gress, ever dreamed of abrogating the Missouri compromise ; that from that pe- 
riod down to the present session nobody supposed that its validity had been 
impaired, or anything done which rendered it obligatory upon us to make it 
inoperative hereafter ; that at the time of submitting the report and bill to the 
Senate, on the 4th of January last, neither I nor any member of the commit- 
tee ever thought of such a thing ; and that we could never be brought up to 
the point of abrogating the eighth section of the Missouri act until after the 
senator from Kentucky introduced his amendment to my bill. 

Mr. President, before I proceed to expose the many misrepresentations con- 
tained in this complicated charge, I must call the attention of the Senate to 
the false issue which these gentlemen are endeavoring to impose upon the 
country, for the purpose of diverting public attention from the real issue con- 
tained iu the bill. They wish to have the people believe that the abrogation of 
what they call the Missouri compromise was the main object and aim of the 
bill, and that the only question involved is, whether the prohibition of slavery 
north of o6° 30' shall be repealed or not ? That which is a mere incident 
they choose to consider the principal. They make war on the means by which 
we propose to accomplish an object, instead of openly resisting the object itself. 
The principle which we propose to carry into eflfect by the bill is this : That 
Congress shall neither legislate slavery into any Territories or State, nor out of 
the same ; hut the i^Goplc shall he left free to regulate their domestic concerns in 
their oivn way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States. 

In order to carry this principle into practical operation, it becomes necessary 
to remove whatever legal obstacles might be found in the way of its free exer- 
cise. It is only for the purpose of carrying out this great fundamental princi- 
ple of self-government that the bill renders the eighth section of the Missouri 
act inoperative and void. 

Now, let me ask, will these senators who have arraigned mc, or any one of 
them, have the assurance to rise in his place and declare that this great princi- 
ple was never thought of or advocated as applicable to territorial bills, in 1850 j 
that, from that session until the present, nobody ever thought of incorporating 



371 

this principle in all new territorial organizations ; that the Committee on Ter- 
ritories did not recommend it in their report ; and that it required the amend- 
ment of the senator from Kentucky to bring us up to that point ? Will any 
one of my accusers dare to make this issue, and let it be tried by the record ? 
I will begin with the compromises of 1850. Any senator who will take the 
trouble to examine our journals will find that on the 25th of March of that 
year, I reported from the Committee on Territories two bills including the fol- 
lowing measures : the admission of California, a territorial government for 
Utah, a territorial government for New Mexico, and the adjustment of the 
Texas boundary. These bills proposed to leave the people of Utah and New 
Mexico free to decide the slavery question for themselves, in the precise lan- 
guage of the Nebraska bill now under discussion. A few weeks afterwards, the 
Committee of Thirteen took those two bills and put a wafer between them, 
and reported them back to the Senate as one bill, with some slight amendments. 
One of those amendments was, that the territorial legislatures should not legis- 
late upon the subject of African slavery. I objected to that provision upon 
the ground that it subverted the great principle of self-government upon which 
the bill had been originally framed by the Territorial Committee. On the first 
trial, the Senate refused to strike it out, but subsequently did so, after full de- 
bate, in order to establish that principle as the rule of action in territorial or- 
ganizations. 

Mr. Dodge, of Iowa, It was done on your own motion. 

Mr. Douglas. Upon this point I trust I will be excused for reading one or 
two sentences from some remarks I made in the Senate on the 3rd of June, 
1850: 

" The position that I have ever taken has been that this the slavery ques- 
tion, and all other questions relating to the domestic affairs and domestic policy 
of the Territories, ought to be left to the decision of the people themselves, and 
that we ought to be content with whatever way they would decide the question, 
because they have a much deeper interest in these matters than we have, and 
know much better what institutions will suit them, than we, who have never been 
there, can decide for them." 

Again, in the same debate, I said : 

" I do not see how those of us who have taken the position which we have 
taken, (that of non-interference,) and have argued in favor of the right of the 
people to legislate for themselves on this question, can support such a provision 
without abandoning all the arguments which we urged in tbe presidentiiil cam- 
paign in the year 181:8, and the principles set forth by the honorable senator 
from Michigan in that letter which is known as the 'Nicholson letter.' We are 
required to abandon that platform ; we are required to abandon those principles, 
and to stultify ourselves, and to adopt the opposite doctrine ; and for what ? In 
order to say that the people of the Territories shall not have such institutions 
as they shall deem adapted to their condition and their wants. I do not see, 
sir, how such a provision as that can be acceptable either to the people of the 
north or the south." 

Mr. President, I could go on and multiply extract after extract from my 
speeches in 1850, and prior to that date to show that this doctrine of leaving 
the people to decide these questions for themselves is not an " after-thought" 
with me, seized upon this session for the first time, as my calumniators have so 
frequently and boldly charged in their speeches during this debate, and in their 
manifesto to the public. I refused to support the celebrated omnibus bill ia 
1850 until the obnoxious provision was stricken out, and the principle of self- 
government restored, as it existed in my original bill. No sooner were the 
compromise measures of 1850 passed, than the abolition confederates, who lead 



372 

the opposition to this bill now, raised the cry of repeal in some sections of the 
country, and in others forcible resistance to the execution of the law. In order 
to arrest and suppress the treasonable purposes of these abolition confederates, 
and avert the horrors of civil war, it became my duty, on the 23d of October, 
1850, to address an excited and frenzied multitude at Chicago, in defence of 
each and all of the compromise measures of that year. I will read one or two 
sentences from that speech, to show how those measures were then understood 
and explained by their advocates : 

" These measures arc predicated on the great fundamental j^rinaple that every 
people ought to possess the right of forming and regulating their own internal 
concerns and domestic institutions in their own way." 

Again : 

"These things are all confided by the Constitution to each State to decide for 
itself, and I know op no reason why the same principle should not he con' 
fided to the Territories." 

In this speech it will be seen that I lay down a general principle of universal 
application, and make no distinction between territories north or south of 

30° 30'. 

I am aware that some of the abolition confederates have perpetrated a mon- 
strous forgery on that speech, and are now circulating through the abolition 
newspapers the statement that I said that I would " cljng with the tenacity of 
life to the compromise of 1820." This statement, false as it is — a deliberate 
act of forgery, as it is known to be by all who have ever seen or read the speech 
referred to — constitutes the staple article out of which most of the abolition 
orators at the small anti-Nebraska meetings manufacture the greater part of 
their speeches. I now declare that there is not a sentence, a Hue, nor even a 
word in that speech, which imposes the slightest limitation on the application of 
the great principle embraced in this bill in all nev*- territorial organizations, 
without the least reference to the line of 3G° 30'. 

At the session of 1850-'51, a few weeks after this speech was made at Chi- 
cago and when it had been published in pamphlet form and circulated exten- 
eively over the States, the legislature of Illinois proceeded to revise its action 
upon the slavery question, and define its position on the compromise of 1850. 
After rescinding the resolutions adopted at a previous session, instructing my 
colleafTue and myself to vote for a proposition prohibiting slavery in the 'Terri- 
tories, resolutions were adopted approving the compromise measures of 1850. I 
will read one of the resolutions, which was adopted in the House of Represen- 
tatives, by a vote of Gl yeas to 4 nays : 

"Resolved, That our liberty and independence are based upon the right of 
the people to form for themselves such a government as they may choose ; that 
this gre'at privilege — the birthright of freemen, the gift of Heaven, secured to 
us by the blood of our ancestors — ought to be extended to future generations ; 
and no limitation ought to be applied to this power, in the organization of any 
Territory of the United States, of either a 'Territorial government or a State 
Constitution : Provided, The government so established shall be republican, 
and in conformity with the Constitution." 

Another series of resolutions having passed the Senate almost unanimously, 
embracing the same principle in different language, they were concurred in by 
the House. Thus was the position of Illinois, upon the slavery question, de- 
fined at the first session of the legislature after the adoption of the compromise 

of 1860. 

Now, sir, what becomes of the declaration which has been made by nearly 
eyery opponent of this bill, that nx)body in this whole Union ever dreamed that 



373 

the principle of the Utah and New Mexican bill was to be incorporated into all 
future territorial organizations ? I have shown that my own State so under- 
stood and declared it at the time in the most implicit and solemn manner. _ Il- 
linois declared that our "liberty and independence" rest upon this ''princi- 
ple;" that the principle " ought to be extended to future generations;" and 
that " no limitation ought to be applied to this power in the organization of any 
Territory of the United States." No exception is made in regard to Nebraska. 
No Missouri compromise lines; no reservations of the country north of 36° 30'. 
The principle is declared to be the ''birthright of freemen;" the "gift of Hea- 
ven," to be applied without limitation, in Nebraska as well as Utah, north as 
well as south of 36° 30'. 

It may not be out of place here to remark that the legislature of Illinois, at 
its recent session, has passed resolutions approving the Nebraska bill; and 
among the resolutions is one in the precise language of the resolution of 1851, 
which I have just read to the Senate. 

Thus I have shown, Mr. President, that the legislature and people of _ Illinois 
have always understood the compromise measures of 1850 as establishing cer- 
tain principles as rules of action in the organization of all new Territories, and 
that no limitation was to be made on either side of the geographical line of 
36° 30'. 

Neither my time nor your patience will allow me to take up the resolutions of 
the different States in detail, and show what has been the common understand- 
ing of the whole country upon this point. I am now vindicating myself and 
my own action against the assaults of my calumniators ; and, for that purpose, 
it is sufficient to show that, in the report and bill which I have presented to the 
Senate, I have only carried out the known principles and solemnly declared 
will of the State whose representative I am. I will now invite the attention of 
the Senate to the report of the committee, in order that it may be known how 
much, or rather how little, truth there is for the allegation which has been so 
often made and repeated on this floor, that the idea of allowing the people in 
Nebraska to decide the slavery question for themselves was a "sheer after 
thought," conceived since the report was made, and not until the senator from 
Kentucky proposed his amendment to the bill. 

I read from that portion of the report in which the committee lay down the 
principle by which they proposed to be governed : 

" In the judgment of your committee, those measures (compromise of 1850) 
were intended to have a far more comprehensive and enduring effect than the 
mere adjustment of the difficulties arising out of the recent acquisition of Mex- 
ican territory. They were designed to establish certain great principles, which 
would not only furnish adequate remedies for existing evils, but in all time to 
come avoid the perils of a similar agitation, h/ loithdrawimj the question of 
slavery from the halls of Congress and the political arena, and committing it 
to the arbitrament of those who ivere immedlateli/ interested in and alone respon- 
sible for its consequences." 

After making a brief argument in defence of this principle, the report pro- 
ceeds, as follows : 

" From these provisions, it is apparent that the compromise measures of 1850 
affirm and rest upon the following propositions : 

" First. That all questions pertaining to slavery in the Territories, and in the 
new States to be formed therefrom, are to be left to the decision of the people 
residing therein, by their appropriate representatives, to be chosen by them for 
that purpose." 



374 

And, in conclusion, the report proposes a substitute for the bill introduced 
by the senator from Iowa, and concludes as follows : 

" The substitute for the bill which your committee have prepared,, and which 
is commended to the favorable action of the Senate, proposes to carry these 
propositions and principles into practical operation, in the precise language of 
the compromise measures of 1850." 

Mr. President, as there has been so much misrepresentation upon this point, 
I must be permitted to repeat that the doctrine of the report of the committee, 
as has been conclusively proved by these extracts, is — 

First. That the whole question of slavery should be withdrawn from the 
Halls of Congress, and the political arena, and committed to the abitrament of 
those who are immediately interested in and alone responsible for its existence: 

Second. The applying this principle to the Territories and the new States to 
be formed therefrom, all questions pertaining to slavery were to be referred to 
the people residing therein. 

Third. That the committee proposed to carry these pi-opositions and princi- 
ples into effect in the precise language of the compromise •measures of 1850. 

Are not these propositions identical with the principles and provisions of the 
bill on your table ? If there is a hair's breadth of discrepancy between the 
two, I ask any senator to rise in his place and point it out. Both rest upon the 
great principle, which forms the basis of all our institutions, that the people 
are to decide the question for themselves, subject only to the Constitution. 

But my accusers attempt to raise up a false issue, and thereby divert public 
attention from the real one, by the cry that the Missouri compromise is to be 
repealed or violated by the passage of this bill. Well, if the eighth section of 
the Missouri act, which attempted to fix the destinies of future generations in 
those Territories for all time to come, in utter disregard of the rights and 
wishes of the people when they should be received into the Union as States, be 
inconsistent with the great principle of self-government and the Constitution of 
the United States, it ought to be abrogated. The legislation of 1850 abrogated 
the Missouri compromise, so far as the country embraced within the limits of 
Utah and New Mexico was covered by the slavery restriction. It is true, that 
those acts did not in terms and by name repeal the act of 1820, as originally 
adopted, or as extended by the resolutions annexing Texas in 1845, any more 
than the report of the Committee on Territories proposes to repeal the same 
acts this session. But the acts of 1850 did authorize the people of those Ter- 
ritories to exercise "all rightful powers of legislation consistent with the Con- 
stitution," not excepting the question of slavery; and did provide that, when 
those Territories should be admitted into the Union, they should be received 
with or without slavery as the people thereof might determine at the date 
of their admission. These provisions were in direct conflict with a clause 
ia a former enactment, declaring that slavery should be forever prohibited 
in any portion of said Territories, and hence rendered such clause inope- 
rative and void to the extent of such conflict. This was an inevitable con- 
sequence, resulting from the provisions in those acts which gave the people 
the right to decide the slavery question for themselves, in conformity with 
the Constitution. It was not necessary to go further and declare that cer- 
tain previous enactments, which were incompatible with the exercise of the 
powers conferred in the bills, " are hereby repealed." The very act of grant- 
ing those powers and rights have the legal effect of removing all obstructions to 
the exercise of them by the people, as prescribed in those territorial bills. Fol- 
lowing that example, the Committee on Territories did not consider it necessary 
to declare the eighth section of the Missouri act repealed. We were content 
to organize Nebraska in the precise language of the Utah and New Mexican 



375 

bills. Our object was to leave the people entirely free to form and regulate 
their domestic institutions and internal concerns in their own way, under the 
Constitution ; and we deemed it wise to accomplish that object in the exact 
terms in which the same thing had been done in Utah and New Mexico by the 
acts of 1850. This was the principle upon which the committee reported ; and 
our bill was supposed, and is now believed, to have been in accordance with it. 
When doubts were raised whether the bill did fully carry out the principle laid 
down in the report, amendments were made, from time to time, in order to 
avoid all misconstruction, and make the true intent of the act more explicit. 
The last of these amendments was adopted yesterday, on the motion of the 
distiugushed senator from North Carolina, (Mr. Badger,) in regard to the re- 
vival of any laws or regulations which may have existed prior to 1820. That 
amendment was not intended to change the legal effect of the bill. Its 
object was to repel the slander which had been propagated by the enemies of 
the measure in the north, that the southern supporters of the bill desired to 
legislate slavery into these Territories. The south denies the right of Con- 
gress either to' legislate slavery into any Territory or State, or out of any 
Territory or State. Non-interventoin by Congress with slavery in the States or 
Territories is the doctrine of the bill, and all the amendments which hiwe been 
agreed to have been made with the view of removing all doubt and cavil as to 
the true meaning and object of the measure. 

Mr. President, I think I have succeeded in vindicating myself and the action 
of the committee from the assaults which have been made upon us in conse- 
quence of these amendments. It seems to be the tactics of our opponents to 
direct their arguments against the unimportant points and incidental questions 
which a.re to be affected by carrying out the principle, with the hope of relieving 
themselves from the necessity of controverting the principle itself. The senator 
from Ohio [Mr. Chase] led off gallantly in the charge that the committee, in 
the report and bill first submitted, did not contemplate the repeal of the Mis- 
souri compromise, and could not be brought to that point until after the senator 
from Kentucky offered his amendment. The senator from Connecticut [Mr. 
Smith] followed his lead, and repeated the same statement. Then came the 
other senator from Ohio, [Mr. Wade,] and the senator from New York, [Mr. 
Seward,] and the senator from Massachusetts, [Mr, Sumner,] all singing the 
same song, only varying the tune. 

Let me ask these senators what they mean by this statement ? Do they wish 
to be understood as saying that the report and first form of the bill did not 
provide for leaving the slavery question to the decision of the people in the 
terms of the Utah bill ? Surely they will not dare to say that, for I have 
already shown that the two measures were identical in principle and enactment. 
Do they mean to say that the adoption of our first bill would not have had the 
legal effect to have rendered the eighth section of the Missouri act "inoperative 
and void," to use the language of the present bill ? If this be not their mean- 
ing, will they rise in their places and inform the Senate what their meaning 
was ? They must have had some object in giving so much prominence to this 
statement, and in repeating it so often. I address the question to the senators 
from Ohio and Massachusetts, [Mr. Chase and Mr. Sumner.] I despair in 
extorting a response from them ; for, no matter in what way they may answer 
upon this point, I have in my hand the evidence over their own signatures, to 
disprove the truth of their answer. I allude to their appeal or manifesto to the 
people of the United States, in which they arraign the bill and report, in coarse 
and savage terms, as a proposition to repeal the Missouri compromise, to violate 
plighted faith, to abrogate a solemn compact, &;c., &o. This document was 
signed by these two senators in their official capacity, and published to the world 
before any amendments had been offered to the bill. It was directed against 
the committee's first bill and report, and against them alone. If the statements 



376 

in this document, be true, that the first bill did repeal the eighth section of the 
Missouri act, what are we to think of the statements in their speeches since, 
that such was not the intention of the committee, was not the recommendatioa 
of the report, and was not the legal effect of the bill ? On the contrary, if the 
statements in their subsequent speeches are true, what apology do those senators 
propose to make to the Senate and country for having falsified the action of the 
committee in a document over their own signatures, and thus spread a false 
alarm among the people, and misled the public mind in respect to our proceed- 
ings ? These senators cannot avoid the one or the other of these alternatives. 
Let them seize upon either, and they stand condemned and self convicted ; ia 
the one case by their manifesto, and in the other by their speeches. 

In fact, it is clear that they have understood the bill to mean the same thing, 
and to have the same legal effect in whatever phase it has been presented. 
When first introduced, they denounced it as a proposition to abrogate the Mis- 
souri restriction. When amended, they repeated the same denunciation, and so 
on each successive amendment. They now object to the passage of the bill for 
the same reason, thus proving conclusively that they have not the least faith iu 
the correctness of their own statements in respect to the mutation and changes 
in the bill. 

They seem very unwilling to meet the real issue. They do not like to discuss 
the principle. There seems to be something which strikes them with terror 
when you invite their attention to that great fundamental principle of popular 
sovereignty. Hence you find that all the memorials they have presented are 
against i-epealing the Missouri compromise, and iu favor of the sanctity of com- 
pacts — in favor of preserving plighted faith. The senator from Ohio is cautious 
to dedicate his speech with some such heading as " Maintain Plighted Faith." 
The object is to keep the attention of the people as far as possible from this 
principle of self-government and constitutional rights. 

Well, sir, what is this Missouri compromise, of which we have heard so much 
of late ? It has been read so often that it is not necessary to occupy the time 
of the Senate in reading it again. It was an act of Congress, passed on the 0th 
of March, 1820, to authorize the people of Missouri to form a constitution and 
a State government, preparatory to the admission of such State into the Union. 
The first section provided that Missouri should be received into the Union " on 
an equal footing with the original States in all respects whatsoever." The last 
and eighth section provided that slavery should be "forever prohibited" in all 
the territory which had been acquired from France north of 36° 30', and not 
included within the limits of the State of Missouri. There is nothing in the 
terms of the law that purports to be a compact, or indicates that it was any- 
thing more than an ordinary act of legislation. To prove that it was more than 
it purports to be on its face, gentlemen must produce other evidence, and prove 
that there was such an understanding as to create a moral obligation in the na- 
ture of a compact. Have they shown it ? 

I have heard but one item of evidence produced during this whole debate, 
and that was a short paragraph from Niles's Register, published a few days af- 
ter the passage of the act. But gentlemen aver that it was a solemn compact, 
which could not be violated or abrogated without dishonor. According to their 
understanding, the contract was that, in consideration of the admission of Mis- 
souri into the Union, on an equal footing with the original States in all respects 
whatsoever, slavery should be prohibited forever in the Territories north of 36° 
30'. Now, who were the parties to this alleged compact ? They tell us that it 
was a stipulation between the north and the south. Sir, I know of no such 
parties under the Constitution. I am unwilling that there shall be any such 
parties known in our legislation. If there is such a geographical line, it ought 
to be obliterated forever, and there should be no other parties than those pro- 



377 

vided for in the Constitution, viz : the States of this Union. These are tlie only 
parties capable of contracting under the Constitution of the United States. 

Now, if this was a compact, let us see how it was entered into. The bill 
originated in the House of Kepresentativcs, and passed that body without a 
southern vote in its favor. It is proper to remark, however, that it did not at 
that time contain the eighth section, prohibiting slavery in the Territori'^s ; but 
in lieu of it, contained a provision prohibiting slavery in the proposed State of 
Missouri. In the Senate, the clause prohibiriug slavery in the State was stricken 
out, and the eighth section added to the end of the bill, by the terms of which 
slavery was to be forever prohibited in the territory not embraced in the State 
of Missouri north of 36° 80'. The vote on adding this section stood, in the 
Senate, 34 in the affirmative, and 10 in the negative. Of the northern sena- 
tors, 20 voted for it and 2 against it. On the question of ordering the bill to 
a third reading as amended, which was the test vote on its passage, the vote 
stood 24 yeas, 20 nays. Of the northern senators, 4 only voted in the affirma- 
tive, and IS in the negative. Thus it will be seen that, if it was intended to 
be a compact, the north never agreed to it. The northern senators voted to insert 
the prohibition of slavery in the Territories; and then, in the proportion of 
more than four to one, voted against the passage of the bill. The north, there- 
fore, never signed the compact, never consented to it, never agreed to be bound 
by it. This fact becomes very important in vindicating the character of the 
north for repudiating this alleged compromise a few months afterwards. The 
act was approved and became a law on the 6th of March, 1820. In the sum- 
mer of that year, the people of Missouri formed a constitution and State gov- 
ernment preparatory to admission into the Union, in conformity with the act. 
At the next session of Congress, the Senate passed a joint resolution declaring 
Missouri to be one of the States of the Union, on an equal footing with the 
original States. This resolution was sent .to the House of Representatives, 
where it was rejected by northern votes, and thus Missouri was voted out of the 
Union, instead of being received into the Union under the act of the 6th of 
March, 1820, now known as the Missouri compromise. Now, sir, what becomes 
of our plighted faith, if the act of the 6th of March, 1820, was a solemn com- 
pact, as we are now told ? They have all rung the changes upon it , that it 
was a sacred and irrevocable compact, binding in honor, in conscience, and mo- 
rals, which could not be violated or repudiated without perfidy and dishonor ! 
The two senators from Ohio, (Mr. Chase and Mr. Wade,) the senator from 
Massachusetts, [Mr. Sumner,] the senator from Connecticut, [Mr. Smith,] the 
senator from New York, [Mr. Seward,] and perhaps others, have all assumed 
this position. 

Mr. Seward. AVill the senator excuse me for a moment? 

Mr. Douglas. Certainly. 

Mr. Seward. Mr. President, I have foreseen that it would be probable that 
the honorable senator from Illinois would have occasion to reply to many argu- 
ments which have been made by the opponents of this measure ; and it would 
seem, therefore, to create a necessity, on the part of the opponents of the bill, 
to answer his arguments afterwards. Yet, at the same time, meaning to be fair 
and desiring to have no such advantage as the last word, but to leave it to him, 
to whom it rightly belongs, I had proposed, if agreeable to him, when he should 
state anything which controverted my own position, to make the answer during 
his speech, instead of deferring it until afterwards. To me the last word is 
never of any advantage; but I know that it is to him, and ought to be so re- 
garded by him. I have a word to say here, and I propose to say another word 
at another time ; but if it be at all uncomfortable to the senator, I will reserve 
what I have to say until after he concludes. 

Mr. Douglas. If it will take but a minute, I will yield now; but if the 
Benator is to take considerable time, I prefer to go on myself. 



378 

Mr. Seward. No, sir, I make no long speeches anywhere ; I never make a 
long speech, and therefore I would prefer saying what 1 have to submit now, if 
the honorable senator prefers it. 

Mr. Douglas. Very well. 

Mr. Seward. I thought he would. In the first place, I find that the hono- 
rable senator is coming upon my own ground in regard to compromises. 

Mr. Douglas. That is not a vindication of any point which I have attacked. 
I hope the honorable senator will state his point. 

Mr. Seward. I am going to state the point, or I will state nothing. Who- 
ever will refer to my antecedents, will find that in the year 1850 1 expressed 
opinions on the subject of legislative compromises between the north and south, 
which, at that day, were rejected and repudiated. 

Mr. Douglas. If the object of the senator is to go back, and go through all 
his opinions, I cannot yield the floor to him ; but if his object is now to show 
that the north did not violate the Missouri compromise, I will yield. 

Mr. Seward. If the honorable senator will allow me just one minute and a 
half, without dictating what I shall say within that minute and a half, I shall 
be satisfied. 

Mr. Douglas. Certainly, I will consent to that. 

Mr. Seward. I find that the honorable senator from Illinois is standing upon 
the ground upon which I stood in 1850. I have nothing to say now, in favor 
of that ground. On this occasion, I stand upon the ground, in regard to com- 
promises, which has been adopted by the country. Then, when the senator tells 
me that the north did not altogether, willin^y and unanimously, consent to the 
compromise of 1820, I agree to it ; but I have been overborne in the country, 
on the ground that if one northern man carried with him a majority of Con- 
gress he bound the whole north. And so I hold in regard to the compromise 
of 1820, that it was carried by a vote which has been held by the south and by 
the honorable senator from Illinois to bind the north. The south having re- 
ceived their consideration and equivalent, I only hold him, upon his own doc- 
trine and the doctrine of the south, bound to stand to it. That is all I have to 
say upon that point. 

A few words more will cover all that I have to say about what the honorable 
senator may say hereafter as to the n'orth repudiating this contract. When I 
was absent, I understood the senator alluded to the fact that my name appeared 
upon an appeal which was issued by the honorable senator from Ohio, and some 
other members of Congress, to the people, on the subject of this bill. Upon 
that point it has been my intention throughout to leave to the honorable senator 
from Illinois, and those who act with him, whatever there is of merit, and 
whatever there is of responsibility for the present measure, and for all the agi- 
tation and discussion upon it. Therefore as soon as I found, when I returned 
to the Capitol, that ray name was on that paper, I caused it to to be .giade 
known and published, as fully and extensively as I could, that I had never 
been consulted in regard to it ; that I know nothing about it ; and that the 
merit of the measure, as well as the responsibility, belonged to the honorable 
senator from Ohio, and those who co-operated with him ; and that I had never 
seen the paper on which he commented; nor have I in any way addressed the 
public upon the subject. 

Mr. Douglas. I wish to ask the senator from New York a question. If I 
understood his remarks when he spoke, and if I understand his speech as pub- 
lished, he averred that the Missouri compromise was a compact between the 
north and the south ; that the north performed it on its part ; that it had done 
so faithfully for thirty years ; that the south had received all its benefits, and 
the moment these benefits had been fully realized, the south disavowed the ob- 
ligations under which it had received them. Is not that his position ? 



379 

Mr. Seward. I am not accuatomed to answer questions put to me, unless 
they are entirely categorical, and placed in such a shape that I may know ex- 
actly, and have time to consider, their whole extent. The honorable senator 
from Illinois has put a very broad question. What I mean to say, however, 
and that will answer his purpose, is, that his position, and that the position of 
the south is, that this was a compromise j and I say that the north has never 
repudiated that compromise. Indeed, it has never had the power to do so, 
Missouri came into the Union, and Arkansas came into the Union, under that 
compromise ; and whatever individuals may have said, whatever individuals, 
more or less humble than myself, may have contended, the practical effect is, 
that the south has had all that she could get by that compromise, and that the 
north is now in the predicament of being obliged to defend what was left to her. 
I believe that answers the question. 

Mr. Douglas. Now, Mr. President, I choose to bring men directly up to 
this point. ,. The senator from New York has labored in his whole speech to 
make it appear that this was a compact ; that the north had been faithful ; and 
that the south acquiesced until she got all its advantages, and then disavowed 
and sought to annul it. This he pronounced to be bad faith ; and he made ap- 
peals about dishonor. The senator from Connecticut [Mr. Smith]. did the same* 
thing, and so did the senator from Massachusetts, [Mr. Sumner,] and the sena- 
tor from Ohio, [Mr. Chase.] That is the great point to which the whole aboli- 
tion party are now directing all their artillery in this battle. Now, I propose 
to bring them to the point. If this was a compact, and if what they have said 
is fair, or just, or true, who was it that repudiated the compact ? 

Mr. Sumner. Mr. President, the senator from Illinois, I know, does not in- 
tend to misstate my position. That position as announced in the language of 
the speech which I addressed to the Senate, and which I now hold in my hand, 
is, " this is an infraction of solemn obligations, assumed beyond recall by the 
south, on the admission of Missouri into the Union as a slave State ; which was 
one year after the act of 1820. 

Mr. Douglas. Mr. President, I shall come to that; and I wish to see whe- 
ther this was an obligation which was assumed "beyond recall." If it was a 
compact between the two parties, and one party has been faithful, it is beyond 
recall by the other. If, however, one party has been faithless, what shall we 
think of them, if, while faithless, they ask a performance ? 

Mr. Seward. Show it, 

Mr. Douglas. That is what I am coming to. I have already stated that, at 
the next session of Congress, Missouri presented a constitution in conformity 
with the act of 1820; that the senate passed a joint resolution to admit her; 
and that the House refused to admit Missouri in conformity with the alleged 
compact, and, I think, on three distinct votes rejecting her. 

Mr. Seward. I beg my honorable friend, for I desire to call him so, to answer 
me frankly whether he would rather I should say what I have to say in this 
desultory way, or whether he would prefer that I should answer him afterwards; 
because it is with me a rule in the Senate never to interrupt a gentleman, ex- 
cept to help him in his argument. 

Mr. Douglas. I would rather hear the senator now. 

Mr. Seward. What I have to say now, and I acknowledge the magnanimity 
of the senator from Illinois in allowing me to say it, is, that the north stood by 
that compact until Missouri came in with a constitution, one article of which 
denied to colored citizens of other States the equality of privileges which were 
allowed to all other citizens of the United States, and then the North insisted 
on the right of colored men to be regarded as citizens, and entitled to the privi- 
leges and immunities of citizens. Upon that a new compromise was necessary. 
I hope I am candid. 



380 

Mr. Douglas. The senator is candid, I have no doubt, as he understands 
the facts ; but I undertake to maintain that the North objected to Missouri be- 
cause she allowed slavery, and not because of the free-negro clause alone. 

Mr. Seward. No, sir. 

Mr. Douglas. Now I will proceed to prove that the North did not object, 
solely on account of the free-negro clause ; but that in the House of llepresen- 
tatives at that time, the North objected as well because of slavery in regard to 
free negroes. Here is the evidence. In the House of Kepresentatives, on the 
12th of February, 1821, Mr. Mallory, of V^ermont, moved to amend the Senate 
joint resolution for the admission of Missouri, as follows : 

" To amend the said amendment, by striking out all thereof after the word 
resjyecfs, and inserting the following : ' Whenever the people of the said State, 
by a convention, appointed according to the manner provided by the act to au- 
thorize the people of Missouri to form a constitution and State government, and 
for the admission of such State into the Union on an equal footiiBg with the 
original States, and to prohibit slavery in certain territories, approved March 6, 
1820, adopt a constitution conformably to the provisions of said act, and shall 
•IN ADDITION to said jJrovision, Jurther provide, in and hy said constitution, that 
neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever he allowed in said State of 
Missouri, unless inflicted as a punishment for crimes committed against the laws 
of said State, whereof the party accused shall be duly convicted : Provided, 
That the civil condition of those persons who now are held to service in Mis- 
Bouri shall not be affected by this last provision.' " 

Here I show, then, that the proposition was made that Missouri should not 
come in unless, in addition to complying with the Missouri compromise, so 
called, she would go further, and prohibit slavery within the limits of the State. 

Mr. Seward. Now, then, for the vote. 

Mr. Douglas. The vote was taken by yeas and nays. I hold it in ray hand. 
Sixty-one northern men voted for that amendment, and thirty-three against it. 
Thus the North, by a vote of nearly two to one, expressly repudiated a solemn 
compact upon the very matter in controversy, to wit : that slavery should not 
be prohibited in the State of Missouri. 

Mr. Weller. Let the senator from New York answer that. 

Mr. Douglas. I should like to hear his answer. 

Mr. Seward. I desire, if I shall be obtrusive by speaking in this way, that 
senators will at once signify, or that any senator will signify that I am obtru- 
sive. But I make these explantions in this way, for the reason that I desire to 
give the honorable senator from Illinois the privilege of hearing my answer to 
him as he goes along. It is simply this : That this doctrine of compromises is, 
as it has been held, that if so many northern men shall go with so many south- 
ern men as to fix the law, then it binds the north and south alike. I there- 
fore have but one answer to make : that the vote for the restriction was less 
than the northern vote which was given against the whole compromise. 

Mr. Douglas. Well, now, we come to this point : We have been told, during 
this debate, that you must not judge of the north by the rainoi-rty, but by her 
majority. You have been told that the minority, who stood by the ConstitutioQ 
and the rights of the south, were dough-faces. 

Mr. Seward. I have not said so. I will not say so. 

Mr. Douglas. You have all said so in your speeches, and you have asked us 
to take the majority of the north. 

Mr. Seward. I spoke of the practical fact. I never said anything about 
dough-faces. 

Mr. Douglas. You have asked us to take the majority instead of the mi- 
nority. 

Mr. Seward. The majority of the country. 



381 

Mr. Douglas. I am talking of the majority of the northern vote. 

Mr. Seward. No, sir. 

Mr. Douglas. I hope the senator will hear me. I wish to call him to the 
issue. I stated that the north in the IIou.se of Representatives voted against 
admitting Missouri into the Union under the act of 1820, and caused the defeat 
of that measure ; and he said that they voted against it on the ground of the 
free-negro clause in her constitution, and not upon the ground of slavery. 
Now, I have shown by the evidence that it was upon the ground of Slavery, as 
well as upon the other ground ; and that a majority of the north required not 
only that Missouri should comply with the compact of 1820, so called, but that 
she should go further, and give up the whole consideration which the senator 
says the south received from the north for the Missouri compromise. The 
compact, he says, was that in consideration of slavery being permitted in Mis- 
souri, it should be prohibited in the Territories. After having procured the 
prohibition in the Territories, the north, by a majority of her votes, refused to 
admit IMissouri as a slavciiolding State, and, in violation of the alleged com- 
pact, required her to prohibit slavery as a further condition of her admission. 
This repudiation of the alleged compact by the north is recorded by yeas and 
nays, sixty-one to thirty-three, and entered upon the Journal, as an imperisha- 
ble evidence of the fact. With this evidence before us, against whom should 
the charge of perfidy be preferred ? 

Sir, if this was a compact, what must be thought of those who violated it 
almost immediately after it was formed '( I say it was a calumny upon the north 
to say that it was a compact. I should feel a flush of shame upon my cheek, 
as a northern man,' if I were to say that it was a compact, and that the section 
of the country to which I belong received the consideration, and then repudiated 
the obligation in eleven months after it was entered into. I deny that it was 
a compact in any sense of the term. But if it was, the record proves that faith 
was not observed ; that the contract was never carried into effect ; that afcer the 
north had procured the passage of the act prohibiting slavery in the Territories, 
with a majority in the House large enough to prevent its repeal, Missouri was 
refused admission into the Union as a slaveholding State, in conformity with 
the act of March G, 1820. If the proposition be correct, as contended for by 
the opponents of this bill, that there was a solemn compact between the north 
and south that, in consideration of the prohibition of slavery in the Territories, 
Missouri was to be admitted into the Union in conformity with the act of 1820, 
that compact was repudiated by the north and rescinded by the joint action of 
the two parties within twelve months from its date. Missouri was never ad- 
mitted under the act of the 6th of March, 1820. She was refused admission 
under that act. Slie was voted out of the Union by northern votes, notwith- 
standing the stipulation that she should be received ; and, in consequence of 
these facts, a new compromise was rendered necessary, by the terms of which 
Missouri was to be admitted into the Union conditionally — admitted on a condi- 
tion not embraced in the act of 1820, and, in addition, to a full compliance with 
all the provisions of said act. If, then, the act of 1820, by the eighth section 
of which Slavery was prohibited in the Territories, was a compact, it is clear to 
the comprehension of every fair-minded man that the refusal of the north to 
admit Missouri, in compliance with its stipulations, and without further condi- 
tions, imposes upon us a high moral obligation to remove the prohibition of 
slavery in the Territories, since it has been shown to have been procured upon 
a condition nevor performed. 

Mr. President, inasmuch as the senator from New York has taken great pains 
to impress upon the public mind of the north the conviction that the act of 
1820 was a solemn compact, the violation or repudiation of which by either 
party involves perfidy and dishonour, I wish to call the attention of that senator 
[Mr. Seward] to the fact, that his own State waa the first to repudiate the 



382 

cnmpact and to instruct her senators in Congress not to admit Missouri into the 
Union in compliance with it, nor unless slavery should be prohibited in the 
State of Missouri. 

jMr. Seward. That is so. 
■ Mr. Douglas. I have the resolutions before me, in the printed Journal of 
the Senate. The senator from New York is familiar with the fact, and frankly 
admits it : 

State of New York, ) 

In Assembly, Novemher, 13, 1820. j 

"Whereas the legislature of this State, at the last session, did instruct their 
senators and request their representatives in Congress to oppose the admission, 
as a State, into the Union, of any territory not comprised within the original 
boundaries of the United States, without making the prohibition of slavery 
therein an indispensable condition of admission ; and whereas this legislature is 
impressed with the correctness of the sentiments so communicated to our sena- 
tors and representatives : Therefore — 

^^ Resolved, (if the honorable the Senate concur herein,) That this legislature 
does approve of the principles .contained in the resolutions of the last-session; 
and further, if the provisions contained in any proposed constitution of a new 
State deny to any citizens of the existing States the privileges and immunities 
of citizens of such uew State, that such proposed constitution should uot be 
accepted or confirmed ; the same, in the opinion of this legislature, being void 
by the Constitution of'the United States. And that our senators be instructed, 
and our representatives in Congress be requested, to use their utmost exertions 
to prevent the acceptance and confirmation of any such constitution." 

It will be seen by these resolutions, that at the previous session the New 
York legislature had " instructed" the senators from that State " to oppose 
THE ADMISSION, AS A State, INTO THE Union OF ANY TERRITORY not com- 
prised within the original boundaries of the United States, without making 

THE prohibition OF SLAVERY THEREIN AN INDISPENSABLE CONDITION OF AD- 
MISSION." 

These instructions are not confined to territory north of 36" 30'. They apply, 
and were intended to apply, to the whole country west of the Mississippi, and 
to all territory which might hereafter be acquired. They deny the right of 
Arkansas to admission as a slaveholding State, as well as Missouri. They lay 
down a general principle to be applied and insisted upon everywhere, aud in all 
cases, and under all circumstances. These resolutions were first adopted prior 
to the passage of the act of March C, 1820, which the senator now chooses to 
call a compact. But they were renewed and repeated on the 13 th of No vera- 
ber 1820, a little more than eight months after the adoption of the Missouri 
compromise, as instructions to the New York senators to resist the admission of 
Missouri as a slaveholding State, notwithstanding the stipulations in the alleged 
compact. Now, let me ask the senator from New York by what aifthority he 
declared and published in his speech that the act of 1820, was a compact which 
could not be violated or repudiated without a sacrifice of honour,, justice, and 
good faith. Perhaps he will shelter himself behind the resolutions of his 
State, which he presented this session, branding this bill as a violation of plighted 
faith. 

Mr. Seward. Will the senator allow me a word of explanation ? 

Mr. Douglas. Certainly, with a great deal of pleasure. 

Mr. Seward. I wish simply to say that the State of New York, for now 
thirty years, has refused to make any compact on any terms by which a conces- 
sion should be made for the extension of slavery. But, by the practical action 



of the Congress of the United States, compromises have been made, which, it 
is held by the honorable senator from Illinoid and by the south, bind her against 
her consent and approval. And tiierefore she stands throughout this whole 
matter upon the same ground — always refusing to enter into a compromise, 
always insisting upon the prohibition of slavery within the Territories of the 
United States. But, on this occasion, we stand here with a contract which has 
stood for thirty years, notwithstanding our protest and dissent, and in which 
there is nothing left to be fulGlled except that part which is to be beneficial to 
•us. All the rest has been fulfilled, and we stand here with our old opinions on 
the whole subject of compromises, demanding fulfillment on the part the south, 
which the honorable senator from Illinois on the present occasion represents. 

Mr. Douglas. Mr. President, the senator undoubtedly speaks fur himself 
very frankly and very candidly. 

Mr. Seward. Certainly I do. 

Mr. Douglas. But I deny that on this point he speaks for the State of New 
York. 

Mr. Seward. We shall see. 

Mr. Douglas. I will state the reason why I say so. He has presented here 
resolutions of the State of New York which have been adopted this year, de- 
claring the act of March 6, 1820, to be a "solemn compact." 

I read from the second resolution : 

" But at the same time duty to themselves and to the other States of the 
Union demands that when an efi'ort is making to violate a solemn compact, 
whci-eby the political power of the State and the privileges as well as the ho- 
nest sentiments of its citizens will be jeoparded and invaded, they should raise 
their voice in protest against the threatened infraction of their rights, and de- 
clare that the negation or repeal by Congress of the Missouri compromise will 
be regarded by them as a violation of right and of faith, and destructive of 
that confidence and regard which should attach to the enactments of the fede- 
ral legislature." 

Mr. President, I cannot let the senator off on the plea that I, for the sake of 
the argument, in reply to him and other opponents of this bill, have called it a 
compact; or that the south have called it a compact ; or that other friends of 
Nebraska have called it a cojcupact which has been violated and rendered inva- 
lid. He and his abolition confederates have arraigned me for a violation of a 
compact, which, they say, is "binding in morals, in conscience and honor. I 
have shown that the legislature of New York, at its present session, has de- 
clared it to be " a solemn compact," and that its repudiation would " be regard- 
ed by them as a violation of right, and of faith, and destructive of confidence, 
and regard." I have also shown, that if it be such a compact, the State of 
New York stands self-condemned and self-convicted as the first to repudiate 
and violate it. 

But since the senator has chosen to make an issue with me in respect to the 
action of New York, with the view of condemning my conduct here, I will in- 
vite the attention of the senator to another portion of these resolutions. Re- 
ferring to the fourteenth section of the Nebraska bill, the legislature of New 
York says : 

"That the adoption of this provision would be in derogation of the truth, a 
gross violation of plighted faith, and an outrage and indignity upon the free 
States of the Union, whose assent has been yielded to the admission into the 
Union of Missouri and Arkansas, with slavery, in reliance upon the faithful 
observance of the provision now sought to be abrogated known as the Missouri 
compromise, whereby slavery was declared to be 'forever prohibited in all that 
territory ceded by France to the United States, under the name o£ Lousiana. 



384 

wliich lies north of 36° 30' north latitude, not iucluJed within the limits of 
the State of Missouri." 

I have no comments to make upon the courtesy, and propriety exhibited in 
this legislative declaration, that a provision in a bill, reported by a regular 
commitlee of the Senate of the United States, and known to be approved by 
three-fourths of the body, and which has since received the sanction of their 
votes, is " in derogation of truth, a gross violation of plighted faith, and an 
outrage and indignity," &c. The opponents of this measure claim a monopoly 
of alf the courtesies and amenities, which should be observed among gentlemen, 
and especially in the performance of official duties ; and I am free to say that 
this is one of the mildest and most respectful forms of expression in which they 
have indul"-ed. But there is a declaration in this resolution to which I wish to 
invite the particular attention of the Senate and the country. It is the distinct 
allegation that " the free States of the Union," including New York, yielded 
their " assent to the admission into the Union of Missouri and Arkansas, with 
slaverv, in reliance upon the faithful observance of the provision known as the 
Missouri compromise." 

Now, sir, since the legislature of New York has gone out of its way to ar- 
raign the State on matters of truth, I will demonstrate that this paragraph con- 
tains two material statements in direct '' derogation of truth." I have already 
shown, beyond controversy, by the recordii of the legislature, and by the jour- 
nals of the Senate, that New York never did give her assent to the admission 
of Missouri with slavery ! Hence, I must be permitted to say, in the polite 
lano-uao-e of her own resolutions, that the statement that New York yielded her 
assent to the admission of Missouri with slavery is in " derogation of truth I" 
and, secondly, the statement that such assent was given " in reliance upon the 
faithful observance of the Missouri compromise" is equally " in derogation of 
truth." New York never assented to the admission of Missouri as a slave 
State, never assented to what she now calls the Missouri compromise, never ob- 
served its stipulations as a compact, never has been willing to carry it out; 
but on the contrary has always resisted it, as I have demonstrated by her own 

records. 

Mr. President, I have before me other journals, records, and instructions, 
which prove that New York was not the only free State that repudiated the 
Missouri compromise of 1820 within twelve months from its date. I will not 
occupy the time of the Senate at this late hour of the night by referring to 
them, unless some opponent of the bill renders it necessary. In that event, I 
may be able to place other senators and their States in the same unenviable 
position in which the senator from New York has found himself and his State. 

I think I have shown, that to call the act of the 6th of March 1820 a com- 
pact, binding in honor, is to charge the northern States of this Union with au 
act of perfidy unparalleled in the history of legislation or of civilization. I 
have already adverted to the facts, that in the summer of 1820 Missouri formed 
her constitution, in conformity with the act of the 6th of March; that it was 
presented to Congress at the next session; that the senate passed a joint resolu- 
tion declaring her to be one of the States of the Union, on an equal footing 
with the original States; and that the house of r.epresentatives rejected it, and 
refused to allow her to come into the Union, because her constitution did not 
prohibit slavery. ^ ,1, , . 

These facts created the necessity for a new compromise, the old one having 
failed of its object, which was to bring Missouri into the Union. At this pe- 
riod in the order of events — in February 1821 — when the excitement was 
almost beyond restraint, and a great fundamental principle, involving the right 
of the people of the new States to regulate their own domestic institutions, was 
dividing the Union into two great hostile parties — Henry Clay, of Kentucky, 



385 

came forward with a new compromise, which had the effect to change the issue 
and make the result of the controversy turn upon a different point. He brought 
in a resolution for the admission of Missouri into the Uuion, not in pursuance 
of the act of 1820, not in obedieuce to the understanding when it was adopted, 
and not with her constitution as it had been formed in conformity with that act, 
but he proposed to admit Missouri into the Union upon a '* fundamental condi- 
tion," which condition was to be in the nature of a solemn compact between 
the United States on the one part and the State of Missouri on the other part, 
and to which ''fundamental condition" the State of Missouri was required to 
declare her assent in the form of a " solemn public act." This joint resolution 
passed, and was approved March 2, 1821, and is known as Mr. Clay's Missouri 
compromise, in contradiction to that of 1820, which was introduced into 
the Senate by Mr. Thomas, of Illinois. In the month of June, 1821, the leg- 
islature of Missouri assembled and passed the " solemn public act," and fur- 
nished an authenticated copy thereof to the President of the United States, in 
compliance with Mr. Clay's compromise, or joint resolution. On August 10, 
1821, James Monroe, President of the United States, issued his proclamation, in 
which, after reciting the fact that on the 2d of March, 1821, Congress had 
passed a joint resolution " providing for the admission of the State of Missouri 
into the Union, on a certain condition ;" and that the general assembly of Mis- 
souri, on the 2Gth of Juno, having, " by a solemn public act, declared the as- 
sent of said State of Missouri to the fundamental condition contained in said 
joint resolution," an J having furnished him with an authentic copy thereof, he, 
*' in pursuance of the resolution of Congress aforesaid," declared the admission 
of Missouri to be complete. 

I do not deem it necessary to discuss the question whether the conditions 
upon which Missouri was admitted were wise or unwise. It is sufficient for my 
present purpose to remark, that the " fundamental condition" of her admission 
related to certain clauses in the constitution of Missouri in respect to the mi- 
gration of free negroes into that State; clauses similar to those now in force in 
the constitutions of Illinois and Indiana, and perhaps other States; clauses sim- 
ilar to the provisions of law in force ait that time in many of the old States of 
the Union; and, I will add, clauses which, in my opinion, Missouri had a ri^ht 
to adopt under the Constitution of the United States. It is no answer to this 
position to say, that those clauses in the constitution of Missouri were in viola- 
tion of the Constitution. If they did not conflict with the Constitution of the 
United States, they veere void ; if they were not in conflict, Missouri had a right 
to put them there, and to puss all laws necessary to carry them into efl!ect. 
"Whether such conflict did exist is a question which, by the Constitution, can 
only be determined authoritatively by the Supreme Court of the United States. 
Congress is not the appropriate and competent tribunal to adjudicate and deter- 
mine questions of conflict between the constitution of a State and that of the 
United States. Had Missouri been admitted without any condition or restric- 
tion, she would have had an opportunity of vindicating her constitution and 
rights in the Supreme Court — the tribuiial created by the Constitution for that 
purpose. 

By the condition imposed on Missouri, Congress not only deprived that State- 
of a right which she believed she possessed under the Constitution of the 
United States, but denied her the privilege of vindicating that right in the 
appropriate and constitutional tribunals, by compelling her, " by a solemn pub- 
lic act," to give an irrevocable pledge never to exercise or claim the right. 
Therefore Missouri came in under a humiliating condition — a condition uotim- 
posed by the Constitution of the United States, and which destroys the princi- 
ple of equality which should exist, and by the Constitution does exist, be- 
tween all the States of this Union This inequality resulted from Mr. Clay's 
eompromise of 1821, and is the principle upon which that compromise waa 
25 



386 

constructed. I own that the act is couched in general terms and vague phrases 
•and therefore may possibly be so construed as not to deprive the State of any 
richt she might possess under the Constitution. Upon that point I wish only 
to say, that such a construction makes the '' fundamental condition" void, 
while the opposite construction would demonstrate it to be unconstitutional. I 
have before me the " solemn public act" of Missouri to this fundamental con- 
dition. Whoever will take the trouble to read it will find it the richest speci- 
men of irony and sarcasm that has ever been incorporated into a solemn public 
act. 

Sir, in view of these facts I desire to call the attention of the senator from 
New York to a statement in his speech, upon which the greater part of his ar- 
gument rested. His statement was, and it is now being published in every 
abolition paper, and repeated by the whole tribe of abolition orators and lectu- 
rers, that Missouri was admitted as a slaveholding State, under the act of 1820 ; 
while I have shown, by the President's proclamation of August 10, 1821, that 
she was admitted in pursuance of the resolution of March 2, 1821. Thus it is 
shown that the material point of his speech is contradicted by the highest evi- 
dence — the record in the case. The same statement, I believe, was niade by 
the senator from Connecticut [Mr. Smitb] and the senators from Ohio [Mr. 
Chase and Mr. Wade] and the senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Sumner.] 
Each of these senators made and repeated this statement, and upon the strength 
of this erroneous assertion called upon us to carry into effect the eighth section 
of the same act. The material fact upon which their arguments rested being 
overthrown, of course their conclusions are erroneous and deceptive. 

Mr. Seward. I hope the Senator will yield for a moment, because I have 
never had so much respect for him as I have to-night. 

Mr. Doufflas. I see what course I have to pursue in order to command the 
Senator's respect. I know now how to get it. [Luughter.] 

Mr. Seward. Any man who meets meets me boldly commands my respect. 
I say that Missouri would not have been admitted at all into the Unionby the 
United States except upon the compromise of 1820. When that point was 
settled about the restriction of slavery, it was settled in this way ; that she 
should come in with slavery, and that all the rest of the Louisiana purchase, 
which is now known as Nebraska, should be forever free from slavery. Missouri 
adopted a constitution, which was thought by the northern States to infringe 
upon the right of citizenship guarantied by the Constitution of the United 
States which. was a new point altogether; and upon that point debate was held 
and upon it a new compromise was made, and Missouri came into the Union 
upon the agreement that, in regard to that question, she submitted to the Con- 
stitution of the United States, and so she was admitted into the Union. 

Mr. Douglas. Mr. President, I must remind the senator again that I have 
already proven that he was in error in stating that the north objected to the ad- 
mission of Missouri merely on account of the free negro clause in her consti- 
tution. I have proven by the vote that the north objected to her admission 
because she tolerated slavery ; this objection was sustained by the north by a 
vote of nearly two to one. He cannot shelter himself, therefore, under the free 
neo-ro dpdge, so long as there is a distinct vote of the north objecting to her admis- 
sion ; because, in addition to complying with the act of 1820, she did not also 
prohibit slavery, which was the only consideration that the south was to have 
for ar^reeing to the prohibition of slavery in the Territories. Then, having de- 
prived the senator, by conclusive evidence from the records, of that pretext, 
what do I drive him to ? I compel him to acknowledge that a new compromise 
■was made. 

Mr. Seward. Certainly there was. 

Mr. Douf^las. Then, I ask, why was it made ? Because the north would 
not carry out the first one. And the best evidence that the north did not carry 



387 ' 

out the first one is the senator's admission that the south was corapelled to sub- 
mit to a new one. Then, if there was a new compromise made^ did Mis- 
souri come in under the new one or the old one. 

]Mr. Seward. Under both. 

Mv. Douglas. This is the first time, in this debate, it has been intimated 
that Missouri came in under two acts of Congress. The senator did not allude 
to the resolution of 1821 in his speech; none of the opponents of this bill have 
said it. But it is now admitted that she did not come into the Union under 
the act of 1820 alone. She had been voted out under the first compromise, and 
this vote compelled her to make a new one, and she came in under the new one; 
and jet the senator from New York, in his speech, declared to the world that 
she came in under the first one. This is not an. immaterial question. His 
whole speech rests upon that misapprehension or misstatement of the record. 

Mr. Seward. You had better say misapprehension. 

Mr. Douglas. Very well. We will call it by that name. His whole argu- 
ment depends upon that misapprehension. After stating that the act of 1820 
was a compact, and that the north performed its part of it in good faith, he ar- 
raigns the friends of this bill for proposing to annul the eighth section of 
the act of 1820 without first turning Missouri out of the Union, in order 
that slavery may be abolished therein by the act of Congress. He says to us, 
in substance : " Gentlemen, if you are going to rescind the compact, have res- 
pect for that great law of morals, of honesty, and of conscience, which compels 
you first to surrender the consideration which you have received 'under the com- 
pact.' " I concur with him in regard to the obligation to restore ccnsideration 
when a contract is rescinded. And, inasmuch as the prohibition in the Terri- 
tories north of 36° 30' was obtained, according to his own statement, bv an 
agreement to admit Missouri as a slaveholding State on an equal footing "with 
the original States, "in all respects whatsoever," as specified in the first section 
of the act 5f 1820 ; and, inasmuch as Missouri was refused admission under 
said act, and was compelled to submit to a new compromise in 1821, and was 
then received into the Union on a fundamental condition of inequality, I call 
on him and his abolition confederates to restore the consideration which they 
have received, in the shape of a prohibition of slavery north of 36° 30', under 
a compromise which they repudiated, and refused to carry into eSect. I call 
on them to correct the erroneous statement in respect to the admission of Mis- 
souri, and to make a restitution of the consideration by voting for this bill. I 
repeat, that this is not an immaterial statement. It is the point upon which 
the abolitionists rest their whole argument. They could not get up a show of 
pretest against the great principle of self-government involved in this bill, if 
they could not repeat all the time, as the senator from New York did in his 
speech, that Missouri came into the Union with slavery, in conformity to the 
compact which was made by the act of 1820, and that the south, bavin <>• re- 
ceived the consideration, is now trying to cheat the north out of her part ot the 
benefits. I have proven that, after abolitionism had gained its point so far as 
the eighth section of the act prohibited slavery in the Territory, Missouri was 
denied admission by northern votes until she entered into a compact by which 
she was understood to surrender an important right now exercised by several 
States of the Union. 

Mr. President, I did not wish to refer to these things. I did not understand 
them fully in all their bearings at the time I made my first speech on this sub- 
ject; and, so far as I was familiar with them, I made as little reference to them 
as was consistent with my duty ; because it was a mortifying reflection to me, 
as a Northern man, that we had not been able, in consequence of the abolition 
excitement at the time, to avoid the appearance of bad faith in the observance 
of legislation, which has been denominated a compromise. There were a few 
men then, as there are now, who had the moral courage to perform their duty 



* 388 

to the country and the Constitution, regardless of consequences personal to 
themselves. There were tea Northern men who dared to perform their duty by 
votinnf to admit Missouri into the Uniun on an equal footing with the original 
States, and with no other restriction than that imposed by the Constitution. I 
am aware that they were abused and denounced as we are now ; that they were 
branded as dough-faces, traitors to freedom, and to the section of the country 
whence they come. 

Mr. Geyer. They honored Mr. Lanraan, of Connecticut, by burning him in 
effigy. 

Mr. Douglas. Yes, sir; these Abolitionists honored Mr. Lanraan in Connec- 
ticut just as they are honoring me in Boston, and other places, by burning me 
in effigy. 

Mr. Cass. It will do you no harm. 

Mr. Douglas. Well, sir, I know it will not; but why this burning in effigy? 
It is the legitimate consequences of the address which was sent forth to the 
world by certain Senators whom I denominated, on a former occasion, as the 
Abolition confederates. The Senator from Ohio presented here the other day 
a resolution — he says unintentionally, and I take it so — declaring that every 
Senator who advocated this bill was a traitor to his country, to humanity, and 
to God; and even he seemed to be shocked at the results of his own advice 
when it was exposed. Yet he did not seem to know that it was, in substance, 
what he had advised in his address, over his own signature, when he called upon 
the people to assemble in public meetings and thunder forth their indignation 
at the criminal betrayal of precious rights; when he appealed to ministers of 
the gospel to desecrate their holy calling, and attempted to inflame passions, 
and fanaticism, and prejudice against Senators who would not consider them- 
selves very highly complimented by being called his equals? And yet, when 
the natural consequences of his own action and advice come back upon him, and 
he presents them here, and is called to an account for the indecency of the act, 
he professes his profound regret and surprise that anything should have occur- 
red which could possibly be deemed unkind or disrespectful to any member of 
this body ! 

Mr. Sumner. I rise merely to correct the Senator in a statement in regard 
to myself, to the effect that I had said that Missouri came into the Union under 
the act of 1820, instead of the act of 1821. I forebore to designate any parti- 
cular act under which Missouri came into the Union, but simply asserted, as 
the result of the long controversy with regard to her admission, and as the end 
of the whole transaction, that she was received as a slave State; and that on 
being so received, whether sooner or later, whether under the act of 1820 or 
1821, the obligations of the compact were fixed — irrevocably fixed — so far as 
the South is concerned. 

Mr. Douglas. The Senator's explanation does not help him at all. He says 
he did not state under what act Missouri came in ; but he did say, as I under- 
stood him, that the act of 1820 was a compact, and that, according to that com- 
pact, Missouri was to come in with slavery, provided slavery should be prohi- 
bited in certain territories, and did come in in pursuance of the compact. He 
now uses the word " compact." To what compact does he allude ? Is it not to 
the act of 1820? If he did not, what becomes of his conclusion that the 8th 
section of that act is irrepealuble ? He will not venture to deny that his refer- 
ence was to the act of 1820. Did he refer to the joint resolution of 1821, un- 
der which Missouri was admitted? If so, we do not propose to repeal it. We 
admit that it was a compact, and that its obligations are irrevocably fixed. ]3ut 
that joint resolution does not prohibit slavery in the territories. The Nebraska 
bill does not propose to repeal it, or impair its obligations in any way. Then, 
sir, why not take back your correction, and admit that you did mean the act of 
1820, when you spoke of irrevocable obligations and compacts ? Assuming, 



389 

then, that the Senator meant what he is now unwilling either to admit or deny, 
even while professing to correct me, that Missouri came in under the act of 
1820, I aver that I have proven that she did not come into the Union under 
that act. I have proven that she was refused admission under that alleged 
compact. I have, therefore, proven incontestibly that the material statement 
upon which his argument rests is wholly without foundation, and unequivocally 
contradicted by the record. 

Sir, I believe I may say the same of every speech which has been made 
against the bill, upon the ground that it impaired the obligation of compacts. 
There has not been an argument against the measure, every word of which in 
regard to the faith of compacts is not contradicted by the public records. What 
I complain of is this : The people may think that a Senator, having the laws 
and journals before him, to which he could refer, would not make a statement 
in contravention of those records. They make the people believe these things, 
and cause them to do great injustice to others, under the delusion that they 
have been wronged, and their feelings outraged. Sir, this address did for a 
time mislead the whole country. It made the Legislature of New York be- 
lieve that the act of 1820 was a compact which it would be disgraceful to vio- 
late ; and, acting under that delusion, they framed a series of resolutions, which, 
if true and just, convict that State of an act of perfidy and treachery unparal- 
led in the history of free governments. You see, therefore, the consequences 
of these misstatements. You degrade your own State, and induce the people, 
under the impression that they have been injured, to get up a violent crusade 
against those whose fidelity and truthfulness will in the end command^ their re- 
spect and admiration. In consequence of arousing passions and prejudices, I 
am now to be found in effigy, hanging by the neck, in all the towns where you 
have the influence to produce such a result. In all these excesses, the people 
are yielding to an honest impulse, under the impression that a grievous wrong 
has been perpetrated. You have had your day of triumph. You have suc- 
ceeded in directing upon the heads of others a torrent of insult and calumny 
from which even you shrink with horror, when the fact is exposed that you 
have become the conduits for conveying it into this hall. In your State, sir, 
(addressing himself to Mr. Chase,) I find that I am burnt in effigy in your abo- 
lition towns. All this is done because I have proposed, as it is said, to violate 
a compact ! Now, what will those people think of you when they find out that 
you have stimulated them to these acts, which are disgraceful to your State, dis- 
graceful to your party, and disgraceful to your cause, under a misrepresentation 
of the facts, which misrepresentation you ought to have been aware of, and 
should never have been made ? 

Mr. Chase. Will the Senator from Illinois permit me to say a few words? 

Mr. Douglas. Certainly. 

Mr. Chase. Mr. President, I certainly regret that anything has occurred in 
my State which should be otherwise than in accordance with the disposition 
which I trust I have ever manifested to treat the Senator from Illinois with en- 
tire courtesy. I do not wish, however, to be understood, here or elsewhere, as 
retracting any statement which I have made, or being unwilling to reassert that 
statement when it is directly impeached. I regard the admission of Missouri, 
and the facts of the transaction connected with it, as constituting a compact be- 
tween the two sections of the country ; a part of which was fulfilled in the ad- 
mission of Missouri, another part in the admission of Arkansas, and other parts 
of which have been fulfilled in the admission of Iowa, and the organization of 
Minnesota, but which yet remains to be fulfilled in respect to the Territory of 
Nebraska, and which, in my judgment, will be violated by the repeal of the 
Missouri prohibition. That is my judgment. I have no quarrel with Senators 
who difi"er with me; but upon the whole facts of the transaction, however, I 
have not changed my opinion at all, in consequence of what has been said by the 



390 

honorable Senator from Illinois. ' I say that the facts of the transaction, taken 
together, and as understood by the country for more than thirty years, consti- 
tute a compact binding in moral force; though, as I have always said, be- 
ing embodied in a legislative act, it may be repealed by Congress, if Congress 
sec fit. 

Mr. Douglas. Mr. President, I am sorry that the Senator from Ohio has re- 
peated the statement that Missouri came in under the compact which he says 
was made by the act of 1820. How many times have I to disprove the state- 
ment? Docs not the vote to which I have referred show that such was not the 
case? Does not the fact that there was a necessity for a new compromise show 
it? Have I not proved it three times over? and is it possible that the Senator 
from Ohio will repeat it in the face of the record, with the vote staring him in 
the face, and with the evidence which I have produced ? Does he suppose that 
he can make his own people believe that his statement ought to be credited in 
opposition to the solemn record ? I am amazed that the Senator should repeat 
the statement again unsustained by the fact, by the record, and by the evidence, 
and overwhelmed by the whole current and weight of the testimony which I 
have produced. 

The Senator says, also, that he never intended to do me injustice, and he is 
sorry that the people of bis State have acted in the manner to which I have re- 
ferred. Sir, did he not say, in the saiue document to which I have already al- 
luded, that I was engaged, with others, in " a criminal betrayal of precious 
rights," in an "atrocious plot?" Did he not say that I and others were guilty 
of meditated bad faith ?" Are not these his exact words ? Did he not say that 
"servile demagogues" might make the people believe certain things, or attempt 
to do so ? Did he not say everything calculated to produce and bring upon my 
head all the insults to which I have been subjected publicly and privately — not 
even excepting the insulting letters which I have received from his constituents, 
rejoicing at my domestic bereavements, and praying that other and similar cala- 
mities may befal me ? All these have resulted from that address. I expected 
such consequences when I first saw it. In it he called upon the preachers of 
the Gospel to prostitute the sacred desk in stimulating excesses; and then, for 
fear that the people would not know who it was that was to be insulted and 
calumniated, he told them, in a postcript, that Mr. Douglas was the author of 
all this iniquity, and that they ought not to allow their rights to be made the 
hazard of a presidential game ! After having used such language, he says he 
meant no disrespect — he meant nothing unkind ! He was amazed that I said 
in my opening speech that there was anything offensive in this address; and he 
could not suffer himself to use harsh epithets, or to impugn a gentleman's mo- 
tives ! No ! not he ! After having deliberately written all these insults, im- 
pugning motive and character, and calling upon our holy religion to sanctify 
the calumny, he could not think of losing his dignity by bandying epithets, or 
using harsh and disrespectful terms ! 

Mr. President, I expected all that has occurred, and more than has come, as 
the legitimate result of that address. The things to which I referred are the 
natural consequences of it. The only revenge I seek is to expose the authors, 
and leave them to bear, as best they may, the just indignation of an honest 
community, when the people discover how their sympathies and feelings 'have 
been outraged, by making them the instruments in performing such desperate 
acts. 

Sir, even in Boston I have been hung in effigy. I may say that I expected 
it to occur even there, for the Senator from Massachusetts lives there. He 
signed his name to that address; and for fear the Boston Abolitionists would 
not know that it was he, he signed it "Charles Sumner, Senator from Massa- 
chusetts." The first outrage was in Ohio, where the address was circulated un- 
der the signature of " Salmon P. Chase, Senator from Ohio." The next came 



391 

from Boston — the snnie Boston, sir, which, under the direction of the same 
leaders, closed Fanueil Hall to the immortal Webster in 1850, because of his 
support of the compromise measures of that year, which all now confess have 
restored peace and harmony to a distracted country. * Yes, sir, even Boston, so 
glorious in her early history — Boston, around whose name so many historical 
associations cling, to gratify the heart and exalt the pride of every American — 
could be led astray by Abolition misrepresentations so far as to deny a hearing 
to her own great man, who had shed so much glory upon Massachusetts and her 
metropolis 1 I know that Boston now feels humiliated and degraded by the act. 
And, sir, (addressing himself to Mr. Sumner,) you will remember tliat when 
you came into the Senate, and sought an opportunity to put forth your Aboli- 
tion incendiarism, you appealed to our sense of justice by the sentiment, " Strike, 
but hoar me first." But when IMr. AVebster went back in 1850 to speak to his 
constituents in his own self-defence, to tell the truth, and to expose his slander- 
ers, you would not hear him, but you strvck Jirs( ! 

Again, sir, even Boston, with her Fanueil Hall consecrated to liberty, was so 
far led astray by abolitionism, that when one of her gallant sons, gallant by 
his own glorious deeds, inheriting a heroic revolutionary name, had given his 
life to his country upon the bloody field of Buena Vista, and when his remains 
were brought home, even that Boston, under abolition guidance and abolition 
preaching, denied him a decent burial, because he lost, his life in vindicating 
his country's honor upon the southern frontier ! Even the name of Lincoln, 
and tl^e deeds of Lincoln, could not secure for him a decent interment, because 
abolitionism follows a patriot beyond the grave. [Applause in the galleries.] 

The presiding ofiicer, Mr. Mason, in the chair. Order must be preserved. 

Mr. Douglas. Mr. President, with these facts before me, how could I hope 
to escape the fate which had followed these great and good men ? While I had 
no right to hope that I might be honored as they had been under abolition aus- 
pices, have I not a right to be proud of the distinction and the association ? Mr. 
President, I regret these digressions. I have not been able to follow the line of 
argument which I had marked out for myself, because of the many interruptions. 
I do not complain of them. It is fair that gentlemen should make them, inasmuch 
as they have not the opportunity of replying; hence I have yielded the floor, 
and propose to do so cheerfully whenever any senator intimates that justice to 
him or his position requires him to say anything in reply. 

Returning to the point from which I was diverted. 

I think I have shown that, if the act of 1826, called the Missouri compro- 
mise, was a compact, it was violated and repudiated by a solemn vote of the 
House of Bepresentatives in 1821, within eleven months after it was adopted. 
It was repudiated by the north by a majority vote, and that repudiation was so 
complete and successful as to compel Missouri to make a new compromise, and 
she was brought into the Union under the new compromise of 1821, and not un- 
der the act of 1820. This reminds me of another point made in nearly all the 
speeches against this bill, and, if I recollect right, was alluded to in the aboli- 
tion manifesto; to which, I regret to say, I haJ occasion to refer so often. I 
refer to the significant hint that Mr. Clay was dead before any one dared to 
bring forward a proposition to undo the greatest work of his hands. The sena- 
tor from New York [Mr. Seward] has seized upon this insinuation, and elabo- 
rated, perhaps, more fully than his compeers ; and now the abolition press sud- 
denly, and as if by miraculous conversion, teems with eulogies upon Mr. Clay 
and his Missouri compromise of 1820. 

Now, Mr. President, does not each of these senators know that Mr. Clay was 
not the author of the act of 1820 ? Do they not know that he disclaimed it in 
1850 in this body ? Do they not know that the Missouri restriction did not 
originate in the House of which he was a member ? Do they not know that 
Mr. Clay never came into the Missouri controversy as a qompromiser until after 



392 

the compromise of 1820 was repudiated, and it became necessary to mate 
another ? I dislike to be compelled to repeat what I have conclusively proven, 
that the compromise which Mr. Clay effected was the act of 1821, under which 
Missouri came into the Union, and not the act of 1820. Mr. Clay made that 
compromise after you had repudiated the first one. How, then,' dare you call 
upon the spirit of that great and gallant statesman to sanction your charge of 
bad faith against the south on this question ? 

Mr. Seward. Will the senator allow me a moment? 

Mr. Douglas. Certainly. 

Mr. Seward. In the year 1851 or 1852, I think 1851, a medal was struck 
in honor of Henry Clay, of gold, which cost a large sum of money, which con- 
tained eleven acts of the life of Henry Clay. It was presented to him by a 
committee of citizens of New York, by whom it had been made. One of the 
eleven acts of his life which was celebrated on that medal, which he accepted, 
was the Missouri compromise of 1820. This is my answer. 

Mr. Douglas. Are the words " of 1820" upon it? 

Mr. Seward. It commemorates the Missouri compromise. 

Mr. Douglas. Exactly. I have seen that medal ; and my recollection is 
that it does not contain the words <' of 1820." One of the great acts of Mr. 
Clay was the Missouri compromise, but what Missouri compromise? Of course 
the one which Henry Clay made, the one which he negotiated, the one which 
brought Missouri into the Union, and which settled the controversy. That 
was the act of 1821, and not the act of 1820. It tends to confirm the 
statement which I have made. History is misread and misquoted, and these 
statements have been circulated and disseminated broadcast through the coun- 
try, concealing the truth. Does not the senator know that Henry Clay, 
when occupying that seat in 1850, [pointing to Mr. Clay's chair,] in his 
speech of the 6th of February of that year, said that nothing had struck 
him with so much surprise as the fact that historical circumstances soon 
passed out of recollection ; and he instanced, as a case in point, the error 
of attributing to him the act of 1820. [Mr. Seward nodded assent.] The 
senator from New York says that he does remember that Mr. Clay did say so. 
If so, how is it, then, that he presumes now to rise and quote that medal as 
evidence that Henry Clay was the author of the act of 1820 ? 

Mr. Seward. I answer the senator in this way : that Henry Clay, while he 
said he did not disavow or disapprove of that compromise, transferred the n)erit 
of it to others who were more active in procuring it than he, while he had en- 
joyed the praise and the glory which were due from it. 

Mr. Douglas. To that I have only to say that it cannot be the reason ; for 
Henry Clay, in that same speech, did take to himself the merit of the compro- 
mise of 1821, and hence it could not have been modesty which made him disa- 
vow the other. He said that he did not know whether he had voted for the act 
of 1820 or not; but he supposed that he had done so. He furthermore said 
that it did not originate in the House of which he was a member, and that he 
never did approve of its principles; but that he may have voted, and probably 
did vote for it, under the pressure of the circumstances. 

Now, Mr. President, as I have been doing justice to Mr. Clay on this ques- 
tion, perhaps I may as well do justice to another great man, who was associated 
with him in carrying through the great measures of 1850, which mortified the 
Senator from New York so much, because they defeated his purpose of carrying 
on the agitation. I allude to Mr. Webster. The authority of his great name has 
been quoted for the purpose of proving that he regarded the Missouri act as a 
compact — an irrepealable compact. Evidently the distinguished Senator from 
Massachusetts (Mr. Everett) supposed he was doing Mr. Webster entire justice 
when he quoted the passage which he read from Mr. Webster's speech of the 
7th of March 1850, when he said that he stood upon the position that every 



393 

part of the American continent was fixed for freedom or for slavery by irrcpcal- 

able law. , , , , , , ,, i^r -i-iT u ^ 

The Senator says that, by the expression " irrepealable law, iMr. Webster 
meant t. include the comprouiise of 1820. Now, I will show that that was not 
Mr. Webster's moaning— that he was never guilty of the mistake of saying 
that the Missouri act of ISiO was an irrepealahle law. Mr. Webster said m 
that speech, that every foot of territory in the United States was fixed as to its 
character for freedom or slavery by an irrepealahle law. He then enquired if 
it was not so in regard to Texas ? He went on to prove that it was ; because, 
he said, there was a compact in express terms between Texas and the United 
States. ' He said the parties were capable of contracting, and that there was a 
valuable consideration ; and hence, he contended, that in that case there was a 
contract binding in honor, and morals, and law : and that it was irrepealahle 
without a breach of faith. 
He went on to siy : 

« Now, as to California and New Mexico, I hold slavery to be excluded from 
those Territories by a law even superior to that which admits and sanctions it 
in Texas— I mean the law of nature, of physical geography, the law of the for- 
mation of the earth." 

That was the irrepealahle law which he said prohibited slavery in the Terri- 
tories of Utah and New Mexico. He next went on to speak of theprohlbition 
of slavery in Oregon, and he said it was an "entirely useless, and, iu that con- 
nexion, senseless proviso." 

He went further, and said : 

" That the whole territory of the States in the United States, or in the newly- 
acquired territory of the United States, has a fixed and settled character, now 
fixed and settled by law, which cannot be repealed in the case of Texas without 
a violation of public faith and cannot be repealed by any human power in re- 
gard to California or New Mexico; that, imder one or other of these la>V!i, every 
foot of territory in the States, or in the Territories, has now- received a fixed 
and decided character." 

^Yhat irrepealahle laws? "One or the other" of those which he hod stated. 
One was the Texas compact, the other the law of nature and physical geogra- 
phy ; a!:d he contended that one or the other fixed the character of the whole 
American continent for freedom or for slavery. He never alluded to the Mis- 
souri compromise, unless it was by the allusion to the Wilmot proviso in the 
Or'cgou bill, and there he said it was a useless, and, in that connexion, senseless 
thing. Why was it a useless and a senseless thing? Because it was re-enact- 
ing the law of God ; because slavery had already been prohibited by physical 
geography. Sir, that was the meaning of Mr. Webster's speech. My distin- 
guished friend from Massachusetts, (Mr. Everett,) when he reads the speech 
again, will be utterly amazed to see how he fell into such an egregious error as 
to suppose that Mr. Webster had so far fallen from his high position as to say 
that the Missouri act of 1820 was an irrepealahle law. 

Mr. Everett. Will the gentleman give way for a moment? 

Mr. Douglas. With great pleasure. 

Mr. Everett. What I said on that subject was, that Mr. Webster, in my 
opinion, considered the Missouri compromise as of the nature of a compact. It 
is true, as the Senator from Hlinois has just stated, that Mr. Webster made no 
allusion, in express terms, to the subject of the Missouri restriction. But I 
thought then, and I think now, that he referred in general terms to that as a 
final settlement of the question, in the region to which it applied. It was not 
drawn in question then on either side of the House. Nobody suggested that 
it was at stake. Nobody intimated that there was a question before the Senate 



394 • . 

whether that restriction should be repealed or should remain in force. It was 
not distinctly, and in terms, alluded to, as the gentleman correctly says, by Mr. 
Webster, or anybody else. What he said in reference to Texas, applied to 
Texas alone. What he said in reference to Utah and New Mexico, applied to 
them alone; and what he said with regard to Oregon, to that Territory alone. 
But he stated in general terms, and four or five times, in the speech of the 7th 
of March 1850, that there was not a foot of land in the United States or its 
Territories the character of which, for freedom or slavery, was not fixed by 
some irrepealable Yaw; and I did think then, and I think now, that by the 
" irrepealable law," as far as concerned the^territory north of 3G° 30', and in- 
cluded in the Louisiana purchase, Mr. Webster had reference to the Missouri 
restriction, as regarded as of the nature of a compact. That restriction was 
copied from one of the provisions of the ordinance of 17S7, which are declared 
in that instrument itself to be articles of compact. The Missouri restriction 
is the article of the ordinance of 1787 applied to the Louisiana purchase. That 
this is the correct interpretation of Mr. Webster's language, is confirmed by the 
fact that he said, more than once, and over again, that all the North lost by the 
arrangement of 1850, was the non-imposition of the Wilmot proviso upon Utah 
and New Mexico. If, in addition to that, the North had lost the Missouri re- 
striction over the whole of the Louisiana purchase, could he have used language 
of that kind, and would he not have attempted, in some way or other, to recon- 
cile such a momentous fact with his repeated statements that the measures of 
1850 applied only to the territories newly acquired from Mexico ? 

Mr. Douglas. Mr. President, I will explain that matter very quickly. Mr. 
Webster's speech was made on the 7th of March 1850, and the territorial bills 
and the Texas boundary bill were first reported to the Senate by myself on the 
25th of the same month. Mr. Webster's speech was made upon Mr. Clay's re- 
solution, when there was no bill pending. Then the omnibus bill was formed 
about the Istof May subsequently; and hence this explains the reason why 
Mr. Webster did not refer to the principle involved in these acts, and to the 
necessary effect of carrying out the principle. * 

Mr. Everett. The expression of Mr. Webster, which I quoted in my remarks 
on the 8th of February, was from a speech on Mr. Soule's amendment, offered, 
1 think, in June. In addition to this, I have before me an extract from a still 
later .«peech of Mr. Webster, made quite late in the session, on the 17th of 
July 1850, in which he reiterated that statement. In it he said : 

" And now, sir, what do Massachusetts and the north, the anti-slavery States, 
lose by this adjustment. What is it they lose? I put that question to every 
gentleirian here, and to every gentleman in the country. They lose the appli- 
cation of what is called the ' Wilmot proviso' to these territories, and that is 
all. There is nothing else, I suppose, that the whole North are not ready to do. 
They wish to get California into the Union ; they wish to quiet New Mexico ; 
they desire to terminate the dispute about the Texan boundary in any reasona- 
ble manner, cost what it reasonably may. They make no sacrifice in all that. 
What they do sacrifice is exactly this : The application of the Wilmot proviso 
to the Territory of New Mexico and the Territory of Utah, aiid that is all." 

Could Mr. Webster have used language like this if he had understood that, 
at the same time, the non-slaveholding States were losing the Missouri restric- 
tion, as applied to the whole vast territory included in the bills now before the 
Senate ? 

^ Mr. Douglas. Of course that was all, and if he regarded the Missouri pro- 
hibition in the same light that he did the Oregon prohibition, it was a useless, 
and, in that connexion, a senseless proviso; and hence the north lost nothing 
by not having that same senseless, useless proviso applied to Utah and New 
Mexico. Now, to show the senator that he must be mistaken as to Mr. Web- 



395 

ster's authority, let me call hia attention back to this passage in his 7th of 
March speech : 

" Under one or other of these laws, every foot of territory in the States or 
Territories has now received a fixed and decided character." 

"What laws did he refer to when he spoke of " one or other of these laws ?" 
He had named but two, the Texas compact and the law of nature, of climate, 
and physical geography, which excluded slavery. He had mentioned none 
other; and yet he says ''one or other" prohibited slavery in all the States or 
Territories — thus including Nebraska, as well as Utah and New Mexico. 

Mr. Everett. That was not drawn in question at all. 

Mr. Douglas. Then if it was not drawn in (juestion, the speech should not 
have been quoted in support of the Missouri compromise. It is just what I 
complain of, that, if it was not thus drawn in question, that use ought not to 
have been made of it. Now, Mr. President, it is well known that Mr. Webster 
supported the compromise measures of 1850, and the principle involved in them, 
of leaving the people to do as they pleased upon this subject. I think, there- 
fore, that I have shown that these gentlemen are not authorized to quote the 
name either of Mr. Webster or Mr. Clay in support of the position which they 
take, that this bill violates the faith of compacts. Sir, it was because Mr. 
Webster went for giving the people in the Territories the right to do as they 
pleased upon the subject of slavery, and because he was in favor of carrying 
out the Constitution in regard to fugitive slaves, that he was not allowed to 
speak in Fanueil Hall. 

Mr. Everett. That was not ray fault. 

Mr. Douglas. I know it was not; but I say it was because he took that po- 
sition ; it was because he did not go for a prohibitory policy ; it was because he 
advocated the same principles which I now advocate, because he went for the 
same provisions in the Utah bill which I now sustain in this bil', that Boston 
abolitionists turned their back upon him, just as they burnt me in eiSgy. Sir, 
if identity of principle, if identity of support as friends, if identity of enemies 
fix Mr. Webster's position, his authority is certainly with us, and not with the 
abolitionists. I have a right, therefore, to have the sympathies of his Boston 
friends with rae, as I sympathized with him when the same principle was in- 
volved. 

Mr. President, I am sorry that I have taken up so much time ; but I ihust 
notice one or two points more. So much has been said about the Missouri com- 
promise act, and about a faithful compliance with it by the north, that I must 
follow that matter a little further. The senator from Ohio [Mr. Wade] has 
referred, to-night, to the fact that I went for carrying out the Missouri compro- 
mise in the Texas resolutions of IS-iS, and in 1848, on several occasions ; and 
he actually proved that I never abandoned it until 1850. He need not have 
taken the pains to prove that fact; for he got all his information on the subject 
from my opening speech upon this bill. I told you then that I was willing, as 
a northern man, in 1845, when the Texas question arose, to carry the Missouri 
compromise line. through that State, and in 1848 I oifered it as an amendment 
to the Oregon bill. Although I did not like the principle involved in that act, 
yet I was willing, for the sake of harmony, to extend tq the Pacific, and abide 
by it in good faith, in order to avoid the slavery agitation. The Missouri com- 
promise was defeated then by the same class of politicians who are now com- 
bined in oppo.sition to the Nebraska bill. It was because we were unable to 
carry out that compromise, that a necessity existed for making a new one in 
1850. And then we established this great principle of self-government which 
lies at the foundation of all our institutions. What does his charge amount to ? 
He charges it, as a matter of offence, that I struggled in 1845 and in 1848 to 
observe good faith ; and he and his associates defeated my purpose, and deprived 



396 

me of the ability to carry out what he now says is the plighted faith of the 
nation. 

]Mr. Wade. I did not charge the senator with anything except with making 
a very excellent argument on my side of the question, and I wished he would 
make it again to-night. That was all. 

Mr. Douglas. What was the argument which I made ? A southern senator 
had complained that the Missouri compromise was a matter of injustice to the 
south. I told him he ought not to complain of that when his southern friends 
were here proposing to accept it; and if we could carry it out, he had no right 
to make such a complaint. I was anxious to carry it out. It would not have 
done for a northern man who was opposed to the measure, and unwilling to 
abide it, to take that position. It would not have become the senator from 
Ohio, who then denounced the very meusure which he now calls a sacred com- 
pact, to take that position. But, as one who had always been in favor of carry- 
ing it out, it was legitimate and proper that I should make that argument in 
reply. 

Sir, as I have said, the south were willing to agree to the Missouri compro- 
mise in 1848. When it was proposed by me to the Oregon bill, as an amend- 
ment, to extend that line to the Pacific, the south agreed to it. The senate 
adopted that proposition, and the House voted it down. In 1850, after the 
omnibus bill had broken down, and we proceeded to pass the compromise mea- 
sures separately, I proposed, when the Utah bill was under discussion, to make 
a slight variation of the boundary of that Territory, so as to include the Mor- 
mon settlements, and not with reference to any other question ; and it was sug- 
gested that we should take the line of 36° 30'. Tliat would have- accomplished 
the local objects of the amendment very well. But when I proposed it, what 
did these freesoilers say? What did the senator from New Hampshire, [Mr. 
Hale,] who was then their leader in this body, say ? Here are his words : 

*' Mr. Hale. I wish to say a word as a reason why I shall vote against the 
amendment. I shall vote against 36° 30', because 1 think there is an implica- 
tion in it. [Laughter.] I will vote for 37° or 36° either, just as it is conve- 
nient; but it is idle to shut our eyes tcr the fact that here is an attempt in this 
bill — I will not say it is the intention of the mover — to pledge this Senate and 
Congress to the imaginary line of 36° 30', because there are some historical 
recollections coiinected with it in regard to this controversy about slavery. I will 
content myself with saying that 1 never w'ill, by vote or speech, admit or submit 
to any thin;/ that may bind the action of our legislation here to make the parallel 
oj 36° 30' the boundary line between slave and free territory. And when I 
say that, I explain the reason why I go against the amendment." 

These remarks of Mr. Hale were not made on a proposition to extend the 
Missouri compromise line to the Pacific, but on a proposition to fix 36° 30' as 
the southern boundary line of Utah, for local reasons. Ho was against it be- 
cause there might be, as he said, an implication growing out of historical recol- 
lections in favor of the imaginary line between slavery and freedom. Does that 
look as if his object was to get an implication in favor of preserving sacred 
this line, in regard to which gentlemen now say there was a solemn compact ? 
That proposition may -illustrate what I wish to say in this connexion upon a 
point which has been made by the opponents of this bill as to the effect of an 
amendment inserted on the motion of the senator from Virginia, [Mr. Mason,] 
into the Texas boundary bill. The opponents of this measure rely upon that 
amendment to show that the Texas compact was preserved by the acts of 1850. 
I have already shown, in my former speech, that the object of the amendment 
was to guaranty to the State of Texas, with her circumscribed boundaries, the 
same number of States which she would have had under her larger boundaries, 
and with the same right to come in with or without slavery, as they please. 



397 

We have been told over and over again that there was no such thing inti- 
mated in debate as that the country cut off from Texas was to be relieved from 
the stipulation "of that compromise. This has been asserted boldly and uucon- 
ditioually, as if there could be no doubt about it. The senator from Georgia 
[Mr. Toombs] in his speech, showed that, in his address to iiis constituents of 
that State, he had proclaimed to the world that the object was to establish a 
principle which would allow the people to decide the question of slavery for 
themselves, north as well as south of ',10° 30'. The line of 36^ 30' was voted 
down as the boundary of Utah, so that there should not be even an implication 
in favor of an imaginary line to divide freedom and slavery. Subsequently, 
when the Texas boundary bill was under cousideration, on the next day after 
the amendment of the senator from Virginia had been adopted, the record 
says : 

" Mr. Sebastian moved to add to the second article the following : 

" 'On the condition that the territory hereby ceded may be, at the proper 
time, formed into a State, and admitted into the Union, with a constitution 
with or without the prohibition of slavery therein, as the people of the said 
Territory may at the time determine.'" 

Then the senator from Arkansas did propose that the territory cut off should 
be relieved from that restriction in express terms, and allowed to come in ac- 
cording to the principles of this bill. What was done? The debate continued : 

" Mr. Foote. Will my friend allow me to appeal to him to move this amend- 
ment when the territorial bill for New Mexico shall be up for consideration ? 
It will certainly be a part of that bill, and I shall then vote for it with pleasure. 
Now it will only embarrass our action." 

Let it be remarked, that no one denied the propriety of the provision. All 
seemed to acquiesce in the principle ; but it was thought better to insert it in 
the territorial bills, as we are now doing, instead of adding it to the Texas 
boundary bill. The debate proceeded : 

" Mr. Sebastian. My only object in offering the amendment is to secure the 
assertion of this principle beyond a doubt. The principlj was acquiesced in 
without difficulty in regard to the territorial government established for Utah, 
a part of this acquired territory, and, it is proper, in my opinion, that it should 
be incorporated in this bill. 

" Messrs. Cass, Foote, and others. Oh, withdraw it. 

'^ Mr. Sebastian. I think this is the proper place for it. It is uncertain 
whether it will be incorporated in the other bill referred to, and the bill itself 
may not pass." 

It will be seen that the debate goes upon the supposition that the eifoct was 
to release the country north of 36° 30' from the obligation of the prohibition; 
and the only question, was whether the declaration that it should be received 
into the Union " with or without slavery" should be inserted in the Texas bill, 
or the territorial bill. 

The debate was continued, and I will read one or two other passages : 

" Mr. Foote. I wish to state to the senator a fact of which, I think, he is 
not observant at this moment ; and that is, that the senator from Virginia has 
introduced an amendment, which is now a part of the bill, which recognises the 
Texas compact of annexation in every respect. 

" Mr. Sebastian. I was aware of the effect of the amendment of the sena- 
tor from Virginia. It is in regard to the number of States to be formed out of 
Texas, and is referred to only in general terms." 



398 

Thus it will be seen that the senator from Arkansas, then explained the 
ameadiuent of the senator from Virginia, which had been adopted, in precisely 
the same way in which 1 explained it in my opening speech. The senator from 
Arkansas continued : 

'* If this amendment be the same as that offered by the senator from Virgi- 
nia there can certainly be no harm in reaffirming it in this bill, to which I 
think it properly belongs." 

Thus it will be seen that nobody disputed that the restriction was to be re- 
moved ; and the only question was, as to the bill in which that declaration 
■would be put. It seems, from the record, that I took part in the debate, and 
said : 

" Mr. Douglas. This boundary as now fixed, would leave New Mexico 
bounded on the east by the 103° of longitude up to .36° oO', and then east to 
the 100° J and it leaves a narrow neck of land between 36° 30' and the old 
boundary of Texas, that would not naturally and properly go to New Mexico 
when it should become a State. This amendment would compel us to include 
it iu New Mexico, or to form it into another State. When the principle shall 
come up in the bill for the organization of a territorial goverument for New 
Mexico, no doubt the same vote which inserted it in the omnibus bill, and the 
Utah bill will insert it there. 

" Several Senators. No doubt of it." 

Upon that debate the amendment of the senator from Arkansas was voted 
down, because it was avowed and distinctly understood that the amendment of 
the senator from Virginia, taken in connexion with the remainder of the bill, 
did release the country ceded by Texas, north of 36° 30' from the restriction ; 
and it was agreed that if we did not put it into the Texas boundary bill, it 
should go into the territorial bill. I stated, as a reason why it should not go 
into the Texas boundary bill, that if it did it would be a compact, and would 
compel us to put the whole ceded country into one State, when it might be 
more convenient and natural to make a different boundary. I pledged myself 
then that it should be put into the territorial bill ; and when we considered the 
territorial bill for New Mexico we put in the same clause, so far as the country 
ceded by Texas was embraced within that territory, and it passed in that shape. 
When it went into the House, they united the two bills together, and thus this 
clause passed in the same bill, as the senator from Arkansas desired. 

Now, sir, have I not shown conclusively that it was the understanding in that 
debate that the effect was to release the country north of 36° 30', which for- 
merly belonged to Texas, from the operation of that restriction, and to provide 
that it should come into the Union with or without slavery, as its people should 
see proper ? 

That being the case, I ask the senator from Ohio [Mr. Chase] if he ought 
not to have been cautious when he charged over and over again that there was 
not a word or a syllable uttered in debate to that effect? Should he not have 
been cautious when he said that it was a mere after-thought on my part ? 
Should he not have been cautious when he said that even I never dreamed of it 
tip to the 4th of January of this year? Whereas the record shows that I made 
a speech to that effect during the pendency of the bills of 1850. The same 
statement was repeated by nearly every senator who followed him in debate in 
opposition to this bill ; and it is now being circulated over the country, pub- 
lished in every abolition paper, and read on every stump by every abolition ora- 
tor, in order to get up a prejudice against me and the measure I have introduced. 
Those gentlemen should not have dared to utter the statement without knowing 
whether it was correct or not. These records are troublesome things sometimes. 
It is not proper for a man to charge another with a mere after-thought because 



399 

he did not know that he had advocated the same principles before. Bc'cause he 
did not know it he should not take it for granted that nobody else did. Let 
me tell the senators that it is a very unsafe rule for them to rely upon. They 
oufht to have had sufficient respect for a brother senator to have believed, when 
he came forward with an important proposition, that he had investigated it. 
They ou<Tht to have had sufficient respect for a committee of this body to have 
assumed that they meant what they said. 

AVhcn I sec such a system of misinterpretation, and misrepresentation of 
views, of laws, of records, of debates, all tending to mislead the public, to 
excite prejudice, and to propagate error, have I not a right to expose it in very 
plain terms, without being arraigned for violating the courtesies of the Senate ? 

Mr. President, frequent reference has been made in debate to the admission 
of Arkansas as a slave-holding State, as furnishing evidence that the abolition- 
ist's and freesoilers, who have recently become so much enamored ^-ith the Mis- 
souri compromise, have always been faithful to its stipulations and implications. 
I will show that the reference is unfortunate for them. When Arkansas applied 
for admission in 1836, objection was made in consequence of the provisions of 
her constitution in respect to slavery. When the abolitionists and fresoilers of 
that day were arraigned for making that objection, upon the ground that Ar- 
kansas was south of 36° 30', they replied that the act of 1820 was never a 
compromise, much less a compact, imposing any obligation upon the successors 
of those who passed the act to pay any more respect to its provisions than to 
any other enactment of ordinary legislation. I have the debates before me, but 
will occupy tlie attention of the Senate only to read one or two paragraphs. 
Mr. Hand of New York, in opposition to the admission of Arkansas as a slave- 
holding State, said : 

" I am aware it will be, as it has been already contended, that by the Mis- 
souri compromise, as it has been preposterously termed, Congress has parted 
with its right to prohibit the introduction of slavery into the territory south of 
36° 30' north latitude." 

He acknowledged that by the Missouri compromise, as he said it was prepos- 
terously termed, the north was estopped from denying the right to hold slaves 
south of that line j but, he added : 

" There are, to my mind, insuperable objections to the soundness of that pro- 
position." 

Here they are : 

" In the first place, there was no compromise or compact whereby Congress 
surrendered any power, or yielded any jurisdiction; and, in the second place, if 
it had done so, it was a mere legislative act, that could not bind their successors, 
it would be subject to a repeal at the will of any succeeding Congress." 

I give these passages as specimens of the various speeches made in opposition 
to the admission of Arkansas by the same class of politicians who now oppose 
the Nebraska bill upon the ground that it violates a solemn compact. So much 
for the speeches. Now for the vote. -The Journal which I hold in my hand, 
shows that forty-nine northern votes were recorded against the admission of 
Arkansas. 

Yet, sirs, in utter disregard — and charity leads me to hope, in profound ig- 
norance — of all these facts, gentlemen are boasting that the north always ob- 
served the contract, never denied its validit}^, never wished to violate it ; and 
they have even referred to the cases of the admission of Missouri and Arkansas 
as instances, of their good faith. 

Now, is it possible that gentlemen could suppose these things could be said 
and distributed in their speeches without exposure ? Did they presume that. 



400 

inasmuch as their lives were devoted to slavery agitation, whatever they did not 
know about the history of that question did not exist ? I am willing to be- 
lieve, I hope it may be the fact, that they were profoundly ignorant, of all 
these records, all these debates, all these facts, which overthrow every position 
they have assumed. I wish the senator from Maine, [Mr. Fessenden,] who 
delivered his maiden speech here to-night, and who made a great many sly 
stabs at me, had informed himself upon the subject before he repeated all these 
groundless assertions. I can excuse him for the reason that he has been here 
but a few days, and, having enlisted under the banner of the abolition confede- 
rates, was unwise and simple enough to believe that what they had published 
could be relied upon as stubborn facts. He may be an innocent victim. I 
hope he can have the excuse of not having investigated the subject. lam 
willing to excuse him on the ground that he did not know what he was talking 
about, and itjs the only excuse which I can make for him. I will say, how- 
ever, that I do not think he was required by his loyalty to the abolitionists to 
repeat every disreputable insinuation which they made. Why did he throw 
into his speech that foul inuendo about a *' northern man with southern princi- 
ples," and then quote the senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Sumner] as his au- 
thority ? Ay, sir, I say that foul insinuation. Did not the senator from Mas- 
sachusetts, who first dragged it into this debate, wish to have the public under- 
stand that I was known as a northern man with southern principles ? Was not 
that the allusion ? If it was, he availed himself of a cant phrase in the public 
mind, in violation of the truth of history. I know of but one man in thi.s 
country who ever made it a boast that he was *'a northern man with southern 
principles," and he [turning to Mr. Sumner] was ?/owr candidate for the Presi- 
dency in 1848. [Applause in the galleries.] 

The Presiding Officer, [Mr. Mason.] Order, order. 

Mr. Douglas. If his sarcasm was intended for Martin Van Burcn, it involves 
a family quarrel, with which I have no disposition to interfere. I will only add 
that I have been able to discover nothing in the present position or recent his- 
tory of that distinguished statesman, which would lead me to covet the sobri- 
quet by which he is known — " a northern man with southern principles." 

Mr. President, the senators from Ohio and Massachu.-etts, [Mr. Chase and 
Mr. Sumner,] have taken the liberty to impeach my motives in bringing for- 
ward this measure. I desire to know by what right they arraign me, or by 
what authority they impute to me other and different motives than those which 
I have assigned. I have shown from the record that I advocated and voted for 
the same principles and provisions in the compromise acts of 1850, which are 
embraced in this bill. I have proven that I put the same construction upon 
those measures immediately after their adoption that is given in the report 
which I submitted this session from the Committee on Territories. I have 
shown that the legislature of Illinois at its first session, after those measures 
were enacted, passed resolutions approving them, and declaring that the same 
great principles of self-government should be incorporated into all territorial 
organizations. Yet, sir, in the face of these facts, these senators have the 
hardihood to declare that this was all an "afterthought" on my part, conceived 
for the first time during the present session ; and that the measure is offered a.s 
a bid for presidential votes ! Are they incapable of conceiving that an honest 
man can do a right thing from worthy motives? I must be permitted to tell 
those senators that their experience in seeking political preferment does not 
furnish a safe rule by which to judge the character and principles of other sena- 
tors ! ' 

I must be permitted to tell the Senator from Ohio that I did not obtain mj 
seat in this body, either by a corrupt bargain or a dishonorable coalition ! I 
must be permitted to remind the Senator from Massachusetts that I did not en- 
ter into any combinations or arrangements by which my character, my princi- 



401 

pies, and my honor, were set up at public auction or private sale in order to pro- 
cure a seat in the Senate of the United States ! I did not come into the Senate 
by any such means. 

Mr. Weller. But there are some men whom I know that did. 

Mr. Chase, (to Mr. Weller.) Do you say that I came here by a bargain ? 

The Presiding Officer, [Mr. Mason.] Order must be preserved in the Se- 
nate. 

Mr. Weller. I will explain what I mean. 

The PresidirJg Oihccr. The Senator from Illinois is entitled to the floor. 

Mr. Dodge of Iowa. I call both the Senator from California and the Senator 
from Ohio to order. 

Mr. Douglas. I cannot yield the floor until I get through. I say, then, 
there is nothing which authorized that Senator to impugn my motives. 

Mr. Chase. Will the Senator from Illinois allow me ? Does he say that I 
came into the Senate by a corrupt bargain? 

Mr. Douglas. I cannot permit the Senator to change the iesue. He has ar- 
raigned me on the charge of seeking high political station by unworthy means. 
I tell him there is nothing in my history which would create the suspicion that 
I come into the Senate by a corrupt bargain or a disgraceful coalition. 

Mr. Chase. Whoever says that I came here by a corrupt bargain states what 
is false. 

Mr. Weller. Mr. President. 

Mr. Douglas. My friend from California will wait till I get through, if he- 
pleases. 

The Presiding Officer. The Senator from Illinois is entitled to the floor. 

Mr. Douglas. It will not do for the Senator from Ohio to return offensive 
expressions after what I have said and proven. Nor can I permit him to change 
the issue, and thereby divert public attention from the enormity of his off"ence, 
in charging me with unworthy motives; while performing a high public duty, 
in obedience to the expressed wish and known principles of my State. I choose 
to maintain my own position, and leave the public to ascertain, if they do not 
understand, how and by what means he was elected to the Senate. 

Mr. Chase. If the Senator will allow me, I will say, in reply to the remarks 
which the Senator has just made, that I did not understand him as calling 
upon me for any explauiition of the statement which he said was made in re- 
gard to a presidential bid. The exact statement in the address was this — it was 
a question addressed to the people : " Would they allow their dearest rights to 
be made the hazards of a presidential game?" That was the exact expression. 
Now, sir, it is well known that all these great measures in the country are in- 
fluenced, more or less, by reference to the great public canvasses which are go- 
ing on from time to time. I certainly did not intend to impute to the Senator 
from Illinois — and I desire always to do justice — in that any improper motive. 
I do not think it is an unworthy ambition to desire to be a President of the 
United States. I do not think that the bringing forward of a measure with re- 
ference to that object would be an improper thing, if the measure be proper in 
itself. I diff'er from the Senator in my judgment of the measure. I do not 
think the measure is a right one. In that I express the judgment which I ho- 
nestly entertain. I do not condemn his judgment; I do not make, and I do 
not desire to make, any personal imputations upon him in reference to a great 
public question. 

Mr. Weller. Mr. President — 

Mr. Douglas. I cannot allow my friend from California to come into the 
ring at this time, for this is my peculiar business. I may let him in after 
awhile. I wish to examine the explanation of the senator from Ohio, and see 
whether I ought to accept it as satisfactory. He has quoted the language of 
the address. It is undeniable that that language clearly imputed to me the de- 
26 



402 

sign of bringing forward this bill with a view of securing my own election to 
the presidency. Then, by way of excusing himself for imputing to me such a 
purpose, the senator says that he does not consider it " an unworthy ambition;" 
and hence he says that, in making the charge, he does not impugn my motives. 
I must remind him that, in addition to that insinuation, he only said, in the 
same address, that my bill was a '^ criminal betrayal of precious rights;" he 
only said it was "an atrocious plot against freedom and humanity;" he only 
said that it was "meditated bad faith;" he only spoke significantly of " servile 
demagogues;" he only called upon the preachers of the Gospel -and the people 
at their public meetings to denounce and resist such a monstrous iniquity. In 
saying all this, and much of the same sort, he now assures me, in the presence 
of the Senate, that he did not mean the charge to imply an " unworthy ambi- 
tion ;" that it was not intended as a " personal imputation" upon my motives 
or character; and that he meant " no personal disrespect" to me as the author 
of the measure. In reply, I will content myself with the remark, that there 
is a very wide difference of opinion between the senator from Ohio and mjself 
in respect to the meaning of words, and especially in regard to the line of con- 
duct which, in a public man, does not constitute an unworthy ambition. 

Mr. Weller. Now, I ask my friend from Illinois to give way to me for a few 
moments. 

Mr. Douglas. I yield the floor. 

Mr. Weller. I made a remark which no doubt gave cause to this digression 
in the argument of the senator from Illinois. I presume that I know the cir- 
cumstances under which the senator from Ohio was elected to this body. I in- 
timated them in the expression of opinion which I gave a few moments ago. I 
do not know that the senator was elected here under a compromise, or an agree- 
ment, or an expi'ess bargain. I entertain no personal feeling of ill-will against 
the senator, however little respect I may have for his political opinions. I pro- 
pose to state some facts, however, connected with his election, and leave others 
to decide how far they constituted a bargain. Soon after the admission of Ohio 
into the Union, a law had been passed prohibiting negroes and their descendants 
from testifying in a court of justice when a white man was a party — the same 
law required a negro, upon coming within the limits of the State, to give 
bond and security that he would not become a pauper. This law was particu- 
larly odious to the abolitionists, and the democrats had uniformly opposed its 
repeal, upon the ground that such an act would encourage and invite emigrants 
of that class to the State. Such persons, they held, would add nothing to the 
real strength of the State. Certain judges of the supremo and other courts 
were to be elected by the legislature. Some members of the board of public 
works were to be appointed. For these places there were, as is usually the case, 
a multitude of applicants. The political power between the two great parties 
in the legislature was so equally divided that a few (three or four, I believe) 
abolitionists held the balance between them. An effort was made to compro- 
mise with the whigs and elect an abolitionist in the other branch of Congress to 
the Senate. This failed. Propositions were then made to the democrats, which 
resulted in the repeal of the "■ blackdaws," the appointment of certain demo- 
crats to judgeships, &c., and the election of Mr. Chase to the Senate. These 
facts transpired about the time I left the State for California, and I know gave 
great dissatisfaction to a large portion "of the people. 

Mr. Chase. I know that the senator from California means to state the facts 
correctly; but I think justice to myself, and justice to my State, requires mo 
to say that he is not correctly informed in regard to the material facts. The 
truth is, and I owe it to my State to say it, that in the legislature, at the time 
of my election, there were three parties, one of them known as the independent 
democrats, or sometimes as free-soilers, another known as the old-line demo- 
crats, and another known as whigs. It was impossible for either of these three 



403 

parties to elect its candidate of itself, and that happened which I believe has 
happened in very many of the States north and south. 

Mr. Weller. How many votes had the third party ? 

Mr. Chase. Ten or twelve. There were ten or twelve gentlemen elected as 
freesoilers; but it is true the whig portion of them did not vote for me. I got 
none but democratic votes. I received the democratic portion of the frcesoil 
vote, and I received the whole of the old-line democratic vote, without a single 
exception. On the other hand, some gentlemen, generally concurring with me 
in political views in most respects, and also in respect to slavery, but belonging 
to the old-line organization, were elected as members of the supreme court. 
That is the whole of it. 

So far as the repeal of the black laws is concerned ; those laws which, I think, 
the senator from South Carolina [Mr. Butler] once mentioned as a subject of 
reproach against the people of Ohio, by which bonds were required for the 
good behavior of every colored person coming into the State, and by which 
every colored person was excluded as a witness upon the trial of a white man, 
that whole matter of repeal occurred prior to the election, and had no connex- 
ion with it as far I know. 

Mr. Weller. Was not that part of the agreement which resulted in your 
election ? I know these laws were repealed at the same session, and I always 
understood it was a part of the bargain. 

Mr. Chase. It had no connexion with it, so far as I know. I have no doubt 
that the Senator thinks it had, but he is mistaken. Now, I take occasion to 
say that the repeal of these inhuman and oppressive laws was a measure de-. 
manded by the people. 1 rejoiced at their repeal. I believe that everybody 
who has investigated the subject thinks that that repeal was a humane mea- 
sure — a wi.se, fit, and a proper measure. Everybody who knows anything about 
the population of my State since that, knows, that, far from having been pro- 
ductive of any injury, it has resulted in great good. That is all I have to say. 

Mr. Sumner. Will the Senator from Illinois yield the floor to me for a mo- 
ment? 

Mr. Douglas. As I presume it is on the same point, I will hear the testi- 
mony. 

Mr. Sumner. Mr. President, I shrink always instinctively from any effort 
to repel a personal assault. I do not recognize the jurisdiction of this body to 
try my election to the Senate ; but I do state, in reply to the Senator from Illi- 
nois, that if he means to suggest that I came into the body by any waiver of 
principles; by any abandonment of my principles of any kind; by any effort 
or activity of my own, in any degree, he states that which cannot be sustained 
by the facts. I never sought, in any way, the office which I now hold; nor 
was I a party, in any way, directly or indirectly, to those efforts which placed 
me here. 

Mr. Weller. My only excuse for intermeddling with this matter was, that I 
am, t believe, the only member of the Senate who is a native of Ohio. I took 
occasion to say, some days ago, that I was very much mortified that ray native 
State should be represented in the manner she is on this floor. I happened to 
be familiar, as I have stated, with the circumstances under which the Senator 
on my right (Mr. Chase) was elected. He was elected to the Senate the very 
year that I left the State of Ohio, and I was very glad to have an opportunity 
of changing ray residence on that remarkable occasion. [Laughter.] That is 
the only apology which I have to offer for intermeddling with what is otherwise 
a personal matter between the Senator from Ohio and the Senator from Illinois. 
Usually, I have as much as I can do to attend to my own affiiirs — I am rarely 
a volunteer in the controversies of others. 

Mr. Douglas. I do not complain of my friend from California for interposing 
ia the manner he has; for I see that it was very appropriate in hira to do so. 



404 

Bat, sir, the Senator from Massachusetts comes up with a very bold front, and 
denies the right of any man to put him on defence for the manner of his elec- 
tion. He sa3's it is contrary to his principles to engage in personal assaults. 
If he expects to avail himself of the benefit of such a plea, he should act in 
accordance with his professed principles, and refrain from assaulting the charac- 
ter and impugning the motives of better men than himself. p]verybody knows 
that he came here by a coalition or combination between political parties hold- 
ing opposite and hostile opinions. But it is not my purpose to go into the mo- 
rality of the matters involved in his election. The public know the history of 
that notorious coalition, and have formed its judgment upon it. It will not do 
for the Senator to say that he was not a party to it, for he thereby betrays a 
consciousness of the immorality of the transaction, without acquitting himself 
of the responsibilities which justly attach to him. As well might the receiver 
of stolen goods deny any responsibility for the larceny, while luxuriating in the 
proceeds of the crime, as the senator to avoid the consequences resulting from 
the mode of his election, while he clings to the office. I must be permitted to 
remind him of what he certainly can never forget, that when he arrived here, 
to take his seat for the fi.'st time, so firmly were senators impressed with the 
conviction that he had been elected by dishonorable and corrupt means, there 
were very few who, for a long time, could deem it consistent with personal ho- 
nor to hold private intercourse with him. So general was that impression, that 
for a long time he was avoided and shunned as a person unworthy of the asso- 
ciation of gentlemen. Gradually, however, these injurious impressions were 
worn away by his bland manners and amiable deportment ; and I regret that 
the senator should now, by a violation of all the rules of courtesy and propri- 
ety, compel me to refresh his mind upon these unwelcome reminiscences. 

Mr. Cbase. If the senator refers to me, he is stating a fact of which I have 
no knowledge at all. I came here 

Mr. Douglas. I was not speaking of the senator from Ohio, but of his con- 
federate in slander, the senator from Massachusetts, [Mr. Sumner.] I have a 
word now to say to the other senator from Ohio, [Mr. Wade] On the day 
when I exposed this abolition address, so full of slanders and calumnies, he 
rose and stated that, although his name was signed to it, he had never read it ; 
and so willing was he to endorse an abolition document, that he signed it in 
blank, without knowing what it contained. 

Mr. Wade. I have always found them true. 

Mr. Douglas. He stated that from what I had exposed of its contents he 
did not hesitate to endorse every word. In the same- speech he said, thar in 
Ohio a negro was as good as a white man ; with the avowal that he did not 
consider himself any better than a free negro. I have only to say that I should 
not have noticed it if none but free negroes had signed it ! 

The senator from New York, [Mr. Seward,] when I was about to call him 
to account for this slanderous production, promptly denied that he ever signed 
the document. Now, I say, it has been circulated with his named attached to 
it; then I want to know of the senators who sent out the document, who forged 
the name of the senator from New York ? 

Mr. Chase. 1 am glad that the senator has asked that question. I have 
only to say, in reference to that matter, that I have not the slightest knowledge 
in regard to the manner in which various names were appended to that docu- 
ment. It was prepared to be signed, and was signed, by the gentlemen hero 
who are known as independent democrats, and how any other names came to be 
added to it is more than I can tell. 

Mr. Douglas. It is not a satisfactory answer, for those who confess to the 
preparation and publication of a document filled with insult and calumny, with 
forged names attached to it for the purpose of imparting to it respectability, to 
interpose a technical denial that they committed the crime. Somebody did 



405 

forge other people's names to that document. The senators from Ohio and 
Massachusetts [Mr. Chase and Mr. Sumnkr] plead guilty to the authorship 
and publication; upon them rests the responsibility of showing who committed 
the forgery. 

Mr. President, I have done with these personal matters. I regret the neces- 
sity which compelled me to devote so much time to them. All I have done 
and said has been in the way of self defence, as the Senate can bear me witness. 

Mr. President, I have also occr.pied a good deal of time in exposing the cant 
of these gentlemen about the sanctity of the Missouri compromise, and the dis- 
honour attached to the violation of plighted faith. I have exposed these mat- 
ters in order to show that the object of these men is to withdraw from public 
attention the real principle involved in the bill. They well know that the 
abrogation of the Missouri compromise is the incident and not the principal of 
the bill. They well understand that the report of the committee and the bill 
propose to establish the principle in all territorial organizations, that the ques- 
tion of slavery shall be referred to the people to regulate for themselves, and 
that such legislation should be had as was necessary to remove all legal obstru'i- 
tions to the free exercise of this right by the people. 

The eighth section of the Missouri act standing in the way of this great 
principle must be rendered inoperative and void, whether expressly repealed or 
not, in order to give the people the power of regulating their own domestic in- 
stitutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution. 

Now, sir, if these gentlemen have entire confidence in the correctness of their 
own position, why do they not meet the issue boldly and fairly, and controvert 
the soundness of this great principle of popular sovereignty in obedience to the 
Constitution ? They know full well that this was the principle upon which the 
colonies separated from the crown of Great Britian, the principle upon which 
the battles of the revolution were fought, and the principle upon which our re- 
publican system was founded. They cannot be ignorant of the fact that the 
revolution grew out of the assertion of the right on the part of the imperial 
government to interfere with the internal aifairs and domestic concerns of the 
colonies. In this connexion I will invite attention to a few extracts from the 
instructions of the different colonies to their delegates in the Continental Con- 
gress, with a view of forming such a union as would enable them to make suc- 
cessful resistance to the efforts of the crown to destroy the fundamental princi- 
ple of all free government by interfering with the domestic affairs of the colo- 
nies. 

I will begin with Pennsylvania, whose devotion to the principles of human 
liberty, and the obligations of the Constitution, has acquired for her the proud 
title of the Key-stone in the arch of republican States. In her instructions is 
contained the following reservation : 

"Reserving to the people of this colony the sole and exclusive right of regu- 
lating the internal government and police of the same." 

And, in a subsequent instruction, in reference to suppressing the British au- 
thority in the colonies, Pennsylvania uses the following emphatic language : 

" Unanimously declare our willingness to concur in a vote of the Congress 
declaring the United Colonies free and independent States, provided the forming 
the government and the regulation of the internal police of this colony be 
always reserved to the people of the said colony." 

Connecticut, in authorizing her delegates to vote for the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, attached to it the following condition : 

"Saving that the administration of government, and the power of forming 
governments for, and the regulation of the internal concerns and police of each 
colony, ought to be left and remain to the respective colonial legislatures." 



406 

New Hampshire annexed this proviso to her instructions to her delegates to 
vote for independence : 

" Provided the regulation of our internal police be under the direction of 
our own assembly." 

jS"ew Jersey imposed the following condition : 

" Always observing that, whatever plan of confederacy you enter into, the 
ref^ulating of the internal police of this province is to be reserved to the colonial 
legislature." 

Maryland gave her consent to the Declaration of Independence upon the 
condition contained in this proviso : 

" And that said colony will hold itself bound by the resolutions of a majority 
of the United Colonics in the premises, provided the sole and exclusive right of 
regulating the internal government and police of that colony be reserved to the 
people thereof." 

Virginia annexed the following condition to her instructions to vote for the 
Declaration of Independence : 

" Provided that the power of forming government for, and the regulations of 
the internal concerns of the colony, be left to respective colonial legislatures." 

I will not weary the senate in multiplying evidence upon this point. It is 
apparent that the Declaration of Independence had its origin in the violation of 
that great fundamental principle which secured to the people of the colonies 
the right to regulate their owu domestic affairs in their own way ; and that the 
revolution resulted in the triumph of that principle, and the recognition of the 
right asserted by it. Abolitionism proposes to destroy the risrht, and extin- 
guish the principle for which our forefathers waged a seven years' bloody war, 
and upon which our whole system of free government is founded. They not 
only deny the application of this principle to the Territories, but insist upon 
fastening the proliibition upon all the States to be formed out of those Territo- 
ries. Therefore, the doctrine of the abolitionists — the doctrine of the opponents 
of the Nebraska and Kansas bill, and of the advocates of the Missouri restric- 
tion — demand congressional interference with slavery, not only in the Territo- 
ries, but in all the new States to be formed therefrom. It is the same doctrine 
when applied to the Territories and new States of this Union, which the British 
government attempted to enforce by the sword upon the American colonies. It 
is this fundamental principle of self-government which constitutes the distin- 
guishing feature of the Nebraska bill. The opponents of the principle are con- 
sistent in opposing the bill. I do not blame them for their opposition. I only 
ask them to meet the issue fairly and openly, by acknowledging that they are 
opposed to the principle which it is the object of the bill to carry into opera- 
tion. It seems that there is no power on earth, no intellectual power, no me- 
chanical power that can bring them to a fair discussion of the true issue. If 
they hope to delude the people, and escape detection for any considerable length 
of time under the catch- word " Missouri compromise," and '< faith of compacts," 
they will find that the people of this country have more penetration and intel- 
ligence than they have given them credit for. 

Mr. President, there is an important fact connected with this slavery resolu- 
tion, which should never be lost sight of. It has always arisen from one and 
the same cause. Whenever that cause has been removed, the agitation has 
ceased ; and whenever the cause has been renewed, the agitation has sprung 
into existence. That cause is, and ever has been, the attempt on the part of 
Cono-ress to interfere with the question of slavery in the Territories and new 



407 

States formed therefrom. Is it not wise, then, to confine our action within the 
sphere of our legitimate duties, and leave this vexed question to take care of 
itself iu each State and Territory, according to the wishes of the people thcreoof, 
in conformity to the forms and in subjection to the provisions of the Constitu- 
tion y 

The opponents of the bill tell us that agitation is no part of their policy, 
that their great desire is peace and harmony ; and they complain bitterly that I 
should have disturbed the repose of the country by the introduction of this 
measure. Let me ask these professed friends of peace and avowed enemies of 
agitation, how the issue could have been avoided ? They tell me that I should 
have let the question alone — that is, that I should have left Nebraska unorgan- 
ized, the people unprotected, and the Indian barrier in existence, until the swel- 
ling tide of emigration should burst through, and accomplish by violence v;hat 
it is the part of wisdom and statesmanship to direct and regulate by law. How 
long could you have postponed action with safety ? How long could you main- 
tain that Indian barrier, and restrain the onward march of civilization, Christi- 
anity, and free government by a barbarian wall ? Do you suppose that you 
could keep that vast country a howling wilderness in all time to come, roamed 
over by hostile savages, cutting off all safe communication between our Atlantic 
and Pacific possessions ? I tell you that the time for action has come, and can- 
not be postponed. It is a casein which the " let alone" policy would precipi- 
tate a crisis which must inevitably result in violence, anarchy, and strife. 

You cannot fix bounds to the onward march of this great and growing coun- 
try. You cannot fetter the limbs of the young giant. He will burst all your 
chains. He will expand, and grow, and increase, and extend civilization, 
Christianity, and liberal principles. Then, sir, if you cannot check the growth 
of the country in that direction, is it not the part of wisdom to look the danger 
in the face, and provide for an event which you cannot avoid ? I tell you, sir, 
you must provide for continuous lines of settlement from the Mississippi valley 
to the Pacific ocean. And in making this provision, you must decide upon 
what principles the Territories shall be organized ; in other words, whether the 
people shall be allowed to regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, 
according to the provisions of this bill, or 'whether the opposite doctrine of 
congressional interference is to prevail. Postpone it, if you will ; but when- 
ever you do act, this question must be met and decided. 

The Missouri compromise was interference; the compromise of 1850 was non 
interference, leaving the people to exercise their rights under the Constitution. 
The Committee on Territories were compelled to act on this subject. I, as 
their chairman, was bound to meet the question. I chose to take the responsi- 
bility, regardless of consequences personal to myself. I should have done the 
same thing last year, if there had been time; but we know, considering the 
late period at which the bill then reached us from the House, that there was not 
sufficient time to consider the question fully, and to prepare a report upon the 
subject. I was, therefore, persuaded by friends to allow the bill to be reported 
to the Senate, in order that such action might be taken as should be deemed 
■wise and proper. 

The bill was never taken up for action ; the last night of the session having 
been exhausted in debate on the motion to take up the bill. This session, the 
measure was introduced by my friend from Iowa, [Mr. Dodge,] and referred to 
the Territorial Committee during the first week of the session. We have abun- 
dance of time to consider the subject; it was a matter of pressing necessity, 
and there was no excuse for not meeting it directly and fairly. We were com- 
pelled to take our position upon the doctrine either of intervention or non-in- 
tervention. We chose the latter, for two reasons : first, because we believed 
that the principle was right; and, second^ because it was the principle adopted 



408 

in 1850, to which the two great political parties of the country were solemnly 
pledged. 

There is another reason why 1 desire to see this principle recognised as a rule 
of action in all time to come. It will have the effect to destroy all sectional 
parties and sectional agitations. If, in the language of the report of the com- 
mittee, you withdraw the slavery question from the halls of Congress and the 
political arena, and commit it to the abitrament of those who are immediately 
interested in and alone responsible for its consequences, there is nothing left 
out of which sectional parties can be org:inized. It never was done, and never 
can be done on the bank, tariff, distribution, or any other party issue which has 
existed, or may exist, after this slavery question is withdrawn from politics. On 
every other political question these have always supporters and opponents in 
every portion of the Union — in each State, county, village, and neighborhood — • 
residing together in harmony and good-fellowship, and combating each other's 
opiniuus and correcting each other's errors in a spirit of kindness and friend- 
ship. These differences of opinion between neigiibors and friends, and the dis- 
cussions that grow out of them, and the sympathy which each feels with the 
advocates of his own opinions in every other portion of this wide-spread repub- 
lic, adds an overwhelming and irresistible moral weight to the strength of the 
confederacy. 

Affection for the Union can never be alienated or diminished by any other 
party issues than those which are joined upon sectional or geographical lines. 
When the people of the North shall all be rallied under one banner, and the 
whole Sijuth marshalled under another banner, and each section excited to frenzy 
and madness by hostility to the institutions of the other, then the patriot may 
well tremble for the perpetuity of the Union. Withdraw the slavery question 
from the political arena, and remove it to the States and Territories, each to de- ' 
cjde for itself, such a catastrophe can never happen. Then you will never be 
able to tell, by any senator's vote for or against any measure, from what State 
or section of the Union he comes. 

Why, then, can we not withdraw this vexed question from politics? Why 
can we not adopt the principle of this bill as a rule of action in all new territo- 
rial organizations? Why can we not deprive these agitators of their vocation, 
and render it impossible for senators to come here upon bargains on the slavery 
question? I believe that the peace, the harmony, and perpetuity of the Union 
require us to go back to the doctrines of the Revolution, to the principles of 
the Constitution, to the principles of the compromise of 1850, and leave the 
people, under the Constitution, to do as they may see proper in respect to their 
own internal affairs. 

Mr. President, I have not brought this question forward as a northern man 
or as a southern man. I am unwilling to recognise such divisions and distinc- 
tions. I have brought it forward as an American senator, representing a State 
which is true to this principle, and which has approved of my action in respect 
to the Nebraska bill. I have brought it forward not as an act of justice to the 
south more than to the north. I have presented it especially as an act of jus- 
tice to the people of those Territories, and of the States to be formed there- 
from, now and in all time to come. 

I have nothing to say about northern rights or southern rights. I know of 
no such divisions or distinctions under the Constitution. The bill does equal 
and exact justice to the whole Union, and every part of it; it violates the 
rights of no State or Territory, but places each on a perfect equality, and leaves 
the people thereof to the free enjoyment of all their rights under the Constitu- 
tion. 

Now, sir, I wish to say to our southern friends, that if they desire to see this 
great principle carried out, now is their time to rally around it, to cherish it, 



409 

preserve it, make it the rule of action in all future time. If they fail to do it 
now, and thereby allow the doctrine of iuterfcrenue to prevail, upon their heads 
the consequence of that interference must rest. To our northern friends, on 
the other hand, I desire to say, that from this day henceforward, they must re- 
buke the slander which has been uttered against the south, that they desire to 
legislate slavery into thg Territories. The south has vindicated her sincerity, 
her honor on that point, by bringing forward a provision, negativing, in express 
terms, auv such eflect as a result of this bill. I am rejoiced to know that, 
while the' proposition to abrogate the eighth section of the Missouri act comes 
from a free State, the proposition to negative the conclusion that slavery is 
thereby introduced c«mes from a slaveholding State. Thus, both sides furnish 
conclusive evidence that they go for the principle, and the principle only, and 
desire to take no advantage of any possible misconstruction. 

Mr. President, I feel that I owe an apology to the Senate for having occupied 
their attention so long, and a still greater apology for having discussed the ques- 
tion in such an incoherent and desultory manner. But I could not forbeurto 
claim the right of closing this debate. I thought gentlemen would recognise 
its propriety when they saw the manner in which I was assailed and misrepre- 
sented in the course of this discussion, and especially by assaults still more dis- 
reputable in some portions of the country. These assaults have had no other 
effect upon me than to give me courage and energy for a still more resolute dis- 
charge of duty. I say frankly that in my opinion, this measure will be as 
popular at the north as at the south, when its provisions and principles shall 
have been fully developed and become Well understood. The people at the 
north are attached to the principles of self-government ; and you cannot con- 
vince them that that is self-government which deprives a people of the right of 
legislating for themselves, and compels them to receive laws which are forced 
upon them by a legislature in which they are not represented. We ar.; willing 
to stand upon this great principle of self-government everywhere ; and it is to 
us a proud reflection that, in this whole discussion, no friend of the bill has 
urged an argument in its favor which could not be used with the same proprie- 
ty in a free State as in a slave State, and vice versa. But no enemy of the bill 
has used an argument which would bear repetition one mile across Mason and 
Dixon's line. Our opponents have dealt entirely in sectional appeals. The 
friends of the bill have discussed a great principle of universal application, 
which can be sustained by the same reasons, and the same arguments, in every 
time and in every corner of the Union. 



MR. WISE IN WASHINGTON CITY AFTER THE RESULT WAS 

KNOWN. 

After it was fully ascertained that Mr. Wise was certainly Governor elect of 
Virginia, his friends and admirers of the City of Washington concluded to call 
him out, being then in their midst. Arrangements being made, Mr. Wise was 
to address in a brief manner the citizens irrespectively of party, from the bal- 
cony in front of Brown's Hotel. Early in the evening the crowd commenced 
assembling, and when the hour for speaking arrived, we are told by persons who 
were present, that such an assemblage of human beings had scarcely if ever 
been seen in that city on any similar occasion. Mr. Wise appeared, calm and 
serene, and made a few remarks — when the infuriated Know Nothings set up, 



410 

and kept up, the most unearthly and demoniac yell that was ever heard on this 
side of or in all probability even in the infernal regions. Mr. Wise made seve- 
ral attempts to go on ; but his voice was incontinently stifled by the yells of this 
midnight banditti and culvert swarm of debauched ruffians and rowdies. Finally 
his friends withdrew him from the presence of the rabble. They still conti- 
nued to bawl and vociferate in this manner until, to carry out a simile of Spa- 
nish barbarity, they erected in the centre of the street a garote, when some vic- 
timised babbler mounted the sunless scaft'old, with the iron collar already adjust- 
ed, and commenced a Know Nothing harangue. This (^ssipated orator, with 
much gravity of manner and air of superiority, ranted about the " insidious en- 
croachments of the Pope of Rome, the Holy Bible," &c. Now and then at 
the top of his voice, with a countenance frantic with fear, and nervous with fa- 
naticism, he exclaimed "Americans must rule America." Here was a genuine 
specimen of a Know Nothing harangue. When you have heard this Shibbo- 
leth about seventy-five times in a discourse of eighty minutes, you may set it 
down that you have had what was known about the middle of the nineteenth 
century as a Know Nothing harangue. After several of the leaders had ha- 
rangued thus to their satisfaction, this disgraceful mob dispersed to their seve- 
ral dens. Such was the courtesy shown to a stranger and a distinguished Vir- 
ginian in the Federal City ! Such was Know Nothing politeness in the middle 
of the nineteenth century ! § ' 



From the Enquker. 

THE WAY THE MONEY WAS LOST. 

I have compiled a few extracts from Know Nothing papers printed before the 
election, to show " the way the money was lost." They may serve as a caution 
for the future. They fully show that the Know Nothings are eminently enti- 
tled to the name they have assumed. Such statements and estimates as are to 
be found in the extracts below, were never made by Wise-men. The game of 
" brag" was "the order of the day" with Sam's family, and many a poor fel- 
low was duped out of his money by it. I particularly commend the perusal of 
these extracts to sick persons and those who are in low spirits. They cannot be 
read without creating a laugh : 

The trospect still brightening. — We subjoin additional letters of the 
most encouraging character from the Southwest. Sam is evidently making tre- 
mendous progress all over the State. Wise is a used up man. After next Thurs- 
day, he will be heard of no more. A thousand cheers for the victorious Flour- 
noy. — [ Whiij, May 19. 

" The Junto without even the honor of a decent hia-ial." 

The political sky is clear and unclouded. A few shadows at first obscured 
the brilliancy of the sun — but they have been dissipated into thin air, and are^ 
no longer visible. The great American army, moving steadily and harmoniously 
under these auspicious circumstances, will, beyond a doubt, achieve a most bril- 
liant victory. The disjecta membra of Juntoism, after the election, will be 



411 , 

scattered far and wide, without even the honor of a decent burial. — iRkhmond 
Whiff, Mutj 7. 

Fifteen hundred Know Nothing majoriti/ in Richmond. 

Richmond achieved a glorious and startling victory in her charter elections ; 
but that triumph is as nothing compared with that which is shortly to crown 
her afresh. The great American party of this city is firmly, and enthusiisti- 
cally resolved to give Flournoy, Beale and Patton, a majority of not less than 
1500 ! This is no vain boasting, but the State will soon see the prediction con- 
verted into sober reality. — [RiclLmond Whi</, Maij 11. 

[Richmond gave 977 Know Nothing majority.] 

Wise will he defeated hi/ 20,000. 

The following is extracted from a letter from a Virginian, now a merchant in 
Baltimore: — ''I received the other day a letter on business from an extensive 
merchant in Richmond, Va., who said, 'Business is good, and I really believe 
Wise will be defeated by 20,000.' "-~\_Nurfolk Beacon, May 2. 

Flournoy's majority 34,000. 

There are known to be 72,000 members of the American party in Virginia. 
This force, together with the 15,000 Whig votes, which the Chronicle concedes 
to Mr. Flournoy, would make an aggregate of 87,000 votes, leaving Mr. Wise 
but 53,(»00, and electing Flournoy by 34,000 majority. That will do for to- 
day. — \_American Organ of Washington City. 

Wise not more than 30,000 votes in the State. 

Elections. — For the information of our readers we have compiled the vote 
of the last Presidential contest in the cities where municipal elections have been 
held, and have comjiared the result, in order that they may see how fast the 
Democracy is tottering to its fall : 

American gain (in Richmond, Portsmouth, Alexandria, Lynchburg and Fre- 
dericksburg) 1496 in a vote of a little over GOOO. 

A corresponding gain in the different counties would not leave Wise with 
more than 30,000 votes after the election. We hope, therefore, that "Sam" 
will respect the misfortunes of the poor deluded traveller of " Onancock" and 
only beat him by about twenty thousand majority. — [Floyd Intelligencer. 

600 Majority for Flournoy in Preston County. 

Preston. — A correspondent says, " Sam is here in every neighborhood, and 
Wiseocracy is so weak it dare not show its face. Flournoy will carry the county 
by 600 majority, and it usually gives a majority the other way of about 150. 
We intend too to elect an American Congressman in spite of Wise and all other 
demagogues." — [Penny Post, May 7. 

[Preston gave Wise 57 majority.] 

SOUTH-WESTERN VIRGINIA. 

Wise cannot get 10 votes where Johnson got 100. 

Lee County. — *' Sam" has been all around here, and will sweep South- 
western Virginia, such as no country was ever swept before. The people have 



, 412 

become sick of demagogueisra, and their only desire appears now to be, to re- 
trieve the past. Wise cannot possibly get 10 votes where Johnson received 100, 
and this is not particularly confined to any particular locality, but will charac- 
terize the election throughout the entire 8outh-west. This you may state as an 
unalterable certainty. I have always been a Democrat, but have been so com- 
pletely disgusted with the action of the party, in forcing upon us a broken 
down, false, hacknied, renegade ticket, that I determined to be off forever. I 
consider this the very time to break down the severity of party, and give the 
country good and true men in the State and National offices. "Let Americans 
rule America," is my motto. — \_Penni/ Fust. 

[Lee county gave Wise 736 majority. It gave Johnson 234. South-western 
Virginia (McMullen's district) gave Johnson 450 majority. It gives Wise 
3,500 majority. Yet it was an " unalterable certainty" that Wise wOuld not 
get " 10 votes where Johnson got 100." 

Butelers Majoritt/ over Faidhner^ GOO. 

We received the most favorable reports from the Loudoun district. Mr. Bote- 
ler is gaining friends wherever he appears, and will beat Faulkner from 200 to , 
300 votes. 

Other estimates make Boteler's majority as high as 600. — \_Amerlcan 
Organ. 

A Great Political " Ground Swell" on the South- Side. 

Henry County. — The Lynchburg Virginian assures us that late advices 
from this county are exceedingly encouraging. The American cause is daily 
gaining ground, while Wise stock is rapidly declining. It is the same case in 
Floyd, Patrick, Carroll and Franklin — indeed, in all the counties south of the 
river. The American party will sweep the south-side country, after the manner 
of a tornado. It will leave nothing standing which dares to oppose it. Verily, 
the great political ground-swell of 1840 is nothing compared with that of 
1855. — ^Jiichmond Whig, hefore the election. 

[Henry gave Wise 99 majority; Floyd, 125 majority; Patrick, 192 majo- 
rity; Carroll, 359 majority; and Franklin, 347 majority. Such was the way 
in which the "American party" swept the south-side country, " after the 
manner of a tornado." 

Tazewell County — IFi'se's Defeat an Absolute Certainty. 

Tazewell County. — A letter from a gentleman of this county informs us 
that the prospects for the American cause are most encouraging. The people 
there, he says, will resent, with manly indignation, the abusive epithets which 
Mr. Wise applies to the Know Nothings. The same spirit prevails throughout 
that whole section, and Wise's defeat is regarded as an absolute certainty. — 
[^Richmond Whig, May 7. ^ 

[Tazewell gave Mr. Wise 915 majority ! — and the same spirit prevailed 
throughout that whole section."] 

Paulus Powell, the Worst Beaten 3Ian in Virginia. 

Hon. Paulus Powell. — Is there a faithful Democrat in Virginia who will 
rejoice with us, when we announce that intelligence from all portions of the 
Red Lund district assures us of the certainty of this gallant, tried public ser- 
vant's re-election ? — [^Richmond Examiner. 



413 

Our information is exactly the reverse of tliis, and living upon tlie border of 
the district, familiarly acquainted with most of the counties composing it, we 
have better opportunities tlian the Examiner of knowing the true state of things. 
We will wager the Examiner "a ducat to a denier" that Mr. Powell is one of 
the worst beaten candidates in Eastern Virginia ?[ — Lynchhurg Vmjinian, 
before the election. 

[Powell's majority in the District is 793.] 

''OfficiaV^ from the North-west — 15,000 Majoritjj against TT'ise. 

From the North-west, that is the portion of Virginia north and west of the 
Alleghany mountains, we are permitted to give the following extract of a letter 
from official sources : 

'' We now number 201 councils, and about 25,000 members, and increasing 
rapidly. As to withdrawals, there has not been 100 withdrawals outside of 
Harper's Ferry. 

'* I think that when the vote is counted from the West, that Mr. Wi.se will 
find at least 15,000 against him." 

The reader will bear in mind that this is official, and we respectfully call 
upon the Junto, if they deny the statement as to withdrawals, to give us the 
names. We don't want so many indefinite localities and mythical "defectors." 
Our butterfly chasing days were over years ago. — [^Fenny Post, May 5. 

[The " 15,000 against Wise in the North-west" turned out to be about 1500 
in his favor.] 

Enjht Know Nothing Congressmen Elected, and a Majority of the Legislature. 

The Oampaigx. — Notwithstanding the ridiculous statements of the anti- 
American press in regard to the defections and a host of other dire calamities 
said by them to have overtaken the American party, we still continue to receive 
the most encouraging accounts from eveiy section. Our prospects certainly in- 
dicate the election of the whole State ticket — eight out of thirteen Congress- 
men, and a majority at least of the Legislature. The American ticket will 
sweep the West like a tornado. — \_Penny Post. 

[There is a Democratic majority of 54 in the Legislature] 

The ''Ground- Swell" — Greenbrier the Banner County in the " Great Ameri- 
can lievoluiion." 

Greenbrier. — From this county, wo have the intelligence that " Flournoj 
Beale and Patton will roll up a tremendous majority on the 24th of May. 
Everything is harmonious and determined. Greenbrier will be the banner 
county in this great American Picvolution. Nothing can stay the ground- 
swell." — Penny Post, May 5. 

[Greenbrier gave Flournoy 336 majority. It gave Sumners 622 majority.] 
A most Overwhelming Defeat to the Enemies of Sam. 

" Sam." — Our country exchanges bring us most cheering accounts of the 
prospects of this invincible gentleman. The progress which he has made, and 
is now making in Virginia, is unparal'eled in the history of political parties, and 
we predict as the result of his operations the most overwhelming defeat to his 
enemies, ever sustained by any party in the Old Dominion, We append a few 



414 

extracts from correspondents of the True American, frcm different counties, as 
to his doings. — Lynchhunj Virginian, before the election. 

[Here followed a number of letters, the reading of which at this time would 
make a dying man laugh.] 

Col. Roane Elected Triumphanllj/. 

Essex and King and Queen. — From these counties we have the most 
flattering accounts. Col. Roane, the candidate in opposition to Mr. Garnett, 
will be elected triumphantly. The State ticket will also be strongly supported, 
A friend writes us that the Know-Nothings are as thick as " grasshoppers" in 
that section. — Penny Post, April 30. 

[Col. Roane, Know-Nothing, was defeated " triumphantly." 

I/igon's Majority so very Large, that we fear to name it. 

Ligon's majority in Nelson and Amherst will be so very large, that we fear 
to name it. It will exceed the most sanguine anticipations of Sam's friends. — 
\ Charlottesville Advocate, hefore the election. 

[Ligon's majority in the two counties named was 1G2. Is the Advocate still 
" afraid to name it ?" 

Wise beaten by 40,000. 

A great and overwhelming revolution is sweeping over the whole country. 
"Revolutions," it is said, "never go backward." In Virginia, it has almost 
entirely obliterated old party lines. The wave has reached the mountains, and 
washed ttie sand out of the eyes of the people. With tlje opposition Mr. 
Wise has, it is utterly impossible for him to succeed. He cannot stand up 
against opposition within and without his own party. He cannot win the race 
with Gen. Bayly tripping him up at this corner, Bowden knocking him down at 
that, Extra Billy hedging up his way at a third, Nat. Claiborne digging a pit- 
fall for him at a fourth, all the time sweating and panting with his associate 
"renegades" lashed to his back. The indications are that he will be beaten 
20,000 — some say 40,000. — [^Abingdon Virginian, before the election. 

Four to Five Hundred Majority in Hardy. 

We are assured that Hardy will roll up a majority of from four to five hun- 
dred for the American ticket, and that there are not four Whigs in the county 
who will vote for Wise. — \_Romney Intelligencer, May 4, 

[Hardy gave 57 majority for the " American" ticket. It gave 388 majority 
for Summers.] 

^Y. K. Pendleton ^^ Elected with Ease." 

We have cheering accounts from all parts of this Congressional District. W. 
K. Pendleton, American, will, I think be elected with easo, over Dr. Kidwell. 
Mr. P. is a popular speaker, and has canvassed the district thoroughly. He 
will make his mark in Congress if elected. — ^Correspondence oj the Penny 
Post, May 11. 

[Dr. Kidwell's majority is 1336.] 



415 

" Our Nat" Certainly Elected, " and no MistaTce." 

Franklin Pistuict. — The news from this district is cheering. Claiborne 
is guiuing every day, and will, we are informed by letters from some of the 
Knowing ones, most certainly be elected. Bocock is awfully frightened and 
no mistake. Old Pittsylvania and Patrick will give him a terrible lashing, and 
one from the eifects of which he will not be able to recover in time to take his 
seat in the next Congress. Our *' Nat" will however be in Washington about 
that time to attend to the interest of the people of the Franklin Congressional 
District. Mark our prediction and don't forget. — \_Fluijd Iutdli<jencer, Mai/ 12. 

" EspecialJi/ in Pittsylvania." 

Campbell, Bedford, Henry, Pittsylvania and Halifax. — We saw an 
intelli'i'ent Democrat, yesterday, who has recently travelled over the above coun- 
ties. He is a member of the Order, knows what he speaks, and is reliable in 
everything. He represents the prospects of our ticket as being in all respects 
most brilliant. He visited many councils, knew the people, and found large 
iiumbers of Democrats in the Order in all these counties. The unjust and false 
charges against Mr. Flournoy are recoiling with tremendous effect upon the 
miscreants who make them. Very, very few have left the Order, and most of 
them who have done so will vote the American ticket, while numbers are 
coming in daily. The greatest enthusiasm prevailed, especially in Pittsylva- 
nia. — [^Feiu)!/ Post, May 9. 

[Pittsylvania gave Flournoy 20 — It gave Summers 1G6 majority.] 

"Heavy Gains in the Valley." 

" The Valley will certainly do remarkably well, and will show heavy gains." 
[Correspondence of the Pod, May 9. 

[A correspondent of the Enquirer, a few days ago, showed the side on which 
the gains were in the Valley. Wise's majority in the V'alley is about 10,000.] 

" Ko diqjositioyi to Manufacture Puhlic Opinion." 

We have no disposition to enter into the manufacture of public opinion, as 
do the Wise organs, or crow, until after the election ; but there never was a 
more apparent and manifest fact than that Thomas S. Flournoy will be Gover- 
nor by more than 20,000 majority. Every indication from all quarters is to 
that effect. — \_Wheelin(j Times [Abolition) May 5. 

Millson defeated ly GOO to 1,000 Majority. 

"This (Millson's) Congressional District will give the American ticket from 
GOO to 1,000 majority, and it may even exceed that number. Great enthusi- 
asm prevails throughout the entire district. The reported withdrawals in this 
section are base fabrications." — \_Correspondent of the Richmond Whii/, May 
22. 

[Millson's majority is about 5G8.] 

Sam's Majority in Floyd 225 to 375. 

Floyd County. — "The majority in this county will not be less than 225, 
and we are making every effort to carry it up to 375. Scott's majority was 
only 83." — [Correspondent of the Richmond Whig, May 22. 

[Floyd county gave Wise 125 majority.] 



416 

Sa7ns Mfijoriti/ in Patrick 350. 

Patrick County. — " Place no reliance on the statement in the Enquirer in 
regard to this county. You may safely put down the majority for the Ameri- 
can ticket in Patrick at 350, and I surely believe it will exceed that. From 
Henry, Franklin and Floyd, I have the most cheering account of the progress 
of the great American movement." — Correspondent of the Richmond Whiij, 
Mail 22. 

[Wise's majority in Patrick is 192.] 

" tiaio hut one man in 5 months against Sam." 

Frederick and Page Counties. — "I rejoice to inform you that the cause 
of our country is progressing so well in this (Frederick) county. I have tra- 
veled very cousiderably for the last 5 months in the upper end of this and the 
lower end of Hampshire county, and in all that time I have met tvith hut one 
mn)i that was against ws, and I feel assured that I am warranted in saying that 
old Frederick will give a majority of 150 for our nominees. 

" I have also been informed that there are upwards of 400 members in 
Page. 

" Haviuf belonged to the Democratic party, I am utterly astonished at the 
course they pursue in regard to this great national movement. They seem to 
be blinded not only to the best interests of society, but of the country." — 
[Correspondent of the Richmond ]Vhig, May 22. 

[Frederick gave 130 for Wise — and the official vote of Page is 1033 for 
Wise, 72 (!) for Flournoy. If the gentleman will travel '* five months" through 
PaiTo, he will probably be able to find rather more than " one man" against 
Sam.] 

A Handsome Majoritij for Sam in Pulaski County. 

Pulaski County. — " We shall elect our county delegate, Thomas Poage, 
and give tlie Winchester ticket a handsome majority." — Correspondent of the 
Richmond Whig, May 22. 

[Pulaski gave Mr. AYise " a handsome majority," and didn't elect Mr. 
Poage.] 

Sam's Majority 1500 in KidwcU's District — a7id 2000 In Lewis's District. 

"■ As to the report of withdrawals in the North-West, it is false. We have 
but few, and we take in five to one that withdraws. We will carry this dis- 
trict bv 1500 majority, and we have 2000 to overcome. We will elect Pendle- 
to ConL^ress. The adjoining district will do better than what we do. There is 
1600 majority against them, and they will carry it by 2000. — \_Cor respond nit 
of the Richmond Whig, May 22. 

[Kidwell's majority upwards of 1300 — and Sam's majority in Lewis's dis- 
trict 391, instead of " 2000."] 

An overwhelming Majority for Sam's candidates. 

Hanover County. — Dear Post : We are augmenting our forces daily and 
nightly. We will give Reins, Flournoy and Scott a tremendous vote. Thomp- 
son American candidate for the House of Delegates, will certainly be elected 
by an overwhelming majority. — [^Correspondent of the Post, May 17. 



417 

Nearif/ Every Man in favor of the Knoio Notldng Ticket! 

Hanover and New Kent. — Dear Post : — I happened a few days since to 
be among the people of ^avi Kent and Hanover, when, greatly to my surprise, 
men whom a, few years ago, were the strongest advocates of Democracy are now 
seizing every chance to let their friends know that Flournoy is the man of their 
choice and not Henry A. Wise, the slanderer of all parties. So far, Mr. Editor, 
as I was able to learn, there arc few members of the American Order in the 
above counties, but so well are the people convinced of its republican and na- 
tional principles that nearly every man I saw will go for the whole ticket. You 
can rest assured that both counties will give a larger majority than has ever 
been given for any other party. I am yours, &c. — [ Correqiondent of the Penny 
Post. 

[Hanover gave the Democratic ticket about 200 majority.] 

George W. Palmore Elected in Cumherland and Powhatan. 

Cumberland. — We have very cheering news from this (Cumberland) county. 
George W. Palmore will be elected from Powhatan and Cumberland, and the 
American ticket will get one hundred majority in the latter county. — \ Penny 
Post, before the election. 

[The ''American" ticket got 25 majority in "■ the latter county" — and Mr. 
Palmore was defeated by about 100 majority. Powhatan gave Wise a majority 
of 137.] 

Louisa — " Statements Utterly Unfounded." 

Louisa. — Various exaggerated calculations have been made by the Anti- 
American party in regard to their anticipated majorities in this county — claim- 
ing as high as 200 for Judge Gaskie, &c. These statements we have the best 
reason for knowing are utterly unfounded. With the gallant Clayton G. Cole- 
man as our standard bearer for the State Senate, and the other excellent candi- 
dates in the field, we confidently anticipate a glorious triumph in Louisa. — 
\_Penny Post, May 17. 

[The majority for Caskie in Louisa was precisely 200—644 to 444.] 

" Sam" in MecJdenhurg. 

In this county (Mecklenburg) our information is that Hutcherson, the Ame- 
rican candidate for the Legislature, will certainly be elected. At the last elec- 
tion the whole vote of the country was 1107, and the Democratic majority was 
about 340. Flournoy is certain to get, next Thursday, at least 600 votes. 
Pi-etty good progress in one county. There are seven councils in the county, 
and the Presidents of four of them are Old Line Democrats. We learn also- 
that there was a free barbecue at Williamson's store last Saturday, after which 
thirty-eight joined the order, twenty-two of whom were Democrats. — [^Penny 
Post, May 17. 

[Mecklenburg gives Mr. Wise and the whole Democratic ticket about 400^ 
majority. Johnson's majority over Summers was 317.] 

Botetourt 175 or 225 Majority for Flournoy. 

Botetourt County. — '' From the statistics I send, you will perceive that 
the American party have a clear majority of the votes in this county, besides 

27 



418 

scores of outsiders to be sympathizing with us and will vote our ticket. Pierce's 
majority was 317. We shall change this into at least 175 and very likely to 
225, for Flournoy, Beale and Patton." — [^Richviond Whig, May 15, 

[Botetourt gave Wise 430 majority.] 

" Sam" Dividing Marion County. 

"We shall poll 900 votes in Marion, which is half of the whole." — \_Cor- 
respondent of the Richmond Whig, May 22. 

[The vote of Marion stands, for Wise 1127, Flournoy 450.] 

20,000 and Probably 40,000 Majority for Flournoy. 

We shall not be satisfied with less than 20,000 majority for Flournoy. We 
are disposed to think we shall double that figure. " Press on the column," 
therefore, we say, and look not to the right or left until after the election. We 
wish to have as large a majority as possible. Already certain of success, we 
wish something more than mere victory. We desire to secure a triumph ! — 
\_Penny Post, May 7. 

What a "Fall," my Countrymen! 

" Press on the Column." — As the day of election approaches, the confi- 
dence of the American party rises. Already 72,000 strong, their numbers are 
daily increasing. So certain are they of success, that we fear they may be in- 
duced to relax their exertions. ' Wo trust that may not be the case. Let us 
keep up the fire until jve exterminate the enjmy. We shall give Mr. Wise such a 
fall that he will stand no more chance of rising than Lucifer. — l_Penny Post, 
May 7. 

3Ir. Wise Ruminating in Accomac. 

" Revolutions never go backward. The grand political revolution of the 
Know Nothings is the spontaneous uprising of the people against political 
trickery and party corruptions. It were as vain to attempt to check its progress 
as to stop the tornado in its course. It has the imprimatur of popular approval, 
and Mr. Wise ought by this time to be convinced of the futility of attempting 
to arrest it. Beneath the classic shades.of " Only, near Onancock," he may 
ruminate on the result — and from the instructive teachings of the past may 
gather some valuable lessons for the future." — Richmond Whig, 3Iay 8, 

Know Nothing Sympathy for the Dead Wise Men. 

We can assure our anti-American friends here that we feel no little sympathy 
for them in the present condition of political affairs — the certain, overwhelming 
defeat that awaits them at the coming election staring them in the face. We 
know they feel bad: — the forebodings of their approaching doom haunt them day 
and night. Now, we must say we have not the least objection that Ihey should, 
to the last, show true pluck and grit — indeed, these qualities will always chal- 
lenge our admiration ; but we are solicitous that they should be preparing to 
fold their togas about them and die with the grace and dignity that become the 
remaining few of a once powerful and honorable party — that they will so deport 
themselves in this last death-struggle, that the future faithful historian will be 
unable to find the least spot upon their fairness, truth or honor. We do really 
hope that we shall have it in our power, after the election, with a clear con- 



419 

science, to comply with the old maxim — " to say nothing but good of the dead." 
— [^Kanawha liqmblican, May 2. 

" Sam Doing Wonders in Brunsioich." 

We learn that " Sam" is doing wonders in the Democratic county of Bruns- 
wick. Two councils have been started in that county, and they are working 
finely. Brunswick is the last county in the State in which '' Sam" was intro- 
duced. Nevertheless he will give a good account of himself and family even 
there on election day. — \_Penny Post, May 17. 

[Sure enough, Sara " did wonders in Brunswick." "Wise's majority is 332. 
Johnson's majority over Summers was 154.] 

A Large majority for Sam in Smyth County. 

"We learn that there are seven councils in Smyth county, all in full blast, and 
working finclj'. The order numbers some of the best men in the county, and 
will give a large majority for the Winchester ticket. — iFenny Post, May 17. 

[Smyth gave Wise 83 majority.] 

Our " JSfat" Elected by 800 to 1,000 Majority. 

The Halifax Congressional District. — "Information received from 
every county in this district renders certain the election of Claiborne by a ma- 
jority from 800 to 1,000, while Flournoy will not fall short of 1500, and the 
best informed gentlemen say it will go beyond 2,000." — Richmond Whig, May 
15. 

["Our. Nat" was defeated by 1,700 majority.] 

Tazewell County Safe for Trigg— Trigg Elected. 

"Wytiieville. — "■ Dear "Whig : — Rejoice ! rejoice ! for truly have the friends 
of American and haters of foreign policy, cause to do so hero. The determined 
progeny of Sam now number in this county 800 good and true. It is now 
universally conceded that Trigg will get a majority over both Martin and Mc- 
Mullen, not only in this county, but in the whole district. Tazewell is thought 
safe for Trigg; Smyth will give a very large majority; Preston's fate is sealed, 
and Sheffey's majority may be safely put down at 100." — \_Richmond Whig, 
May 15. 

[Tazewell gave the whole Democratic ticket more than 900 majority — and 
Trigg was defeated by McMuUen, by a msjority of about 3,500.] 

Sam in RocJcingham. 

Sam introduced himself to the good people of Rockingham in September 
last, in the persons of an old Rockingham Democrat, who now resides in Albe- 
marle, and an Alexandria Democrat. Endorsed thus by two " old liners," he 
was most cordially received, and we have never for a moment felt any disposition 
to cut his acquaintance. His family is now large and respectable, having daily 
additions of pure old Jackson Democrats, who can never forget how Henry A. 
Wise used to abuse them and their party. You may rest assured, that the 
Winchester ticket will receive at least 1500 votes in this county. — [Richmond 
Whig, May 15. 

[The vote of Rockingham was : Wise 2,702, Flourno^ 612.] 



420 

The Penny Post Entitling Itself to the Gratitude of Betters. 

A Chance. — The love of money is the besetting sin of the people of this 
world. We scarcely ever meet a man who does'nt want more than he has. 
We are very sure then that we should entitle ourselves to the gratitude of many 
if we direct them to a "plan hy which money can he made. Well, listen, all ye 
lucre-loving sinners, and we will tell you how % 5,000 can be made as clear as 
grit in a little more than a month. Here it is : 

Just get $ 2,500 and come to this office, and we will direct you to a gentle- 
man who has $ 5,000, and who is particularly green. He is anxious to bet 
that amount to % 2,500, that Flournoy will be elected. Well, of course, you 
have seen accounts of so many withdrawals, and of course you know that the 
Know Nothing house is fast tumbling to pieces. So bring us your $ 2,500 and 
stake it as we direct, deposit it in Bank, and on the 4th Thursday in May, 
you'll be $ 5,000 richer than you are now — if Wise is elected. — [liichmond 
Penny Post. 



From the Richmond Enquirer. 

OBITUARY OF SAM. 

It has fallen to our lot to perform the melancholy task of announcing to his 
friends and the public, the death of the lamented " Sam." He departed this 
life on the 24th day of May, 1855, at a place in Virginia, called the Polls, af- 
ter a short illness of extreme mental and bodily suffering. In the morning of 
the 24th, on which the sad catastrophe occurred, he was, apparently, in hne 
health and spirits, and manifested, it was observed by everybody, unusual acti- 
vity in his business. But, alas ! before night he was numbered with those that 
Lave been. Indeed, the writer saw him the very day he died ; he said he never 
folt better, and promised himself a long, happy, and prosperous life. What 
shadows we are ! Sam's days were swifter tlian a weaver's shuttle, and spent 
'without " Hope." His days were few and evil. As for " Sam," his days are 
as grass ; as a flpwer of the field he flourisheth, the breeze of public opinion 
passed over him, he is gone, and the places in Virginia, that knew him once, 
will know him no more for ever. Because, *' Sam" goeth to his long home, 
and the mourners go about the streets. As the particulars of his death may 
be gratifying to his friends at a distance, we give them, as we received them, 
from the most authentic sources. 

About one o'clock, in the afternoon of the 24th, "Sam" became dejected, 
and was soon after taken with a nausea at the stomach, and vomiting up of a 
quantity of crude indigestible matter, supposed to be green fruit, with which he 
had overloaded his stomach, brought from Massachusetts ; this was soon fol- 
lowed by a violent purging at the Polls ; when great debility ensued, termina- 
ting in death. 

The friends of the deceased, both North and South, may be assured that no 
pains or expense was wanting here to save the life of this estimable man. 
Steam and electricity were taxed to the highest power — servants were going 
day and night after the doctors, and the most skillful " knowing" ones, North 
and South, were employed — Councils were held in every corner, and groups of 
the most eminent practitioners, were seen here and there in solemn conclave — 
consulting physicians were called in to confer with family doctors — the prayers 
of the church and the advice of the most eminent divines, in other States, was 
earnestly solicited — th« elders of the church were called for, to anoint him with 



421 

oil ; but all in vain — " Sam's" time had come — the decree had gone forth — a 
portion of the members of the Whig church which had long been in a cold and 
dead state, but had began to " strengthen the things that remain, and were 
read}^ to perish," and to pray and hope for a revival, saying, all our help must 
come from " Sam," now sunk in deep despair; and a universal gloom, as still 
as the grave, hung over the vestals of the " Dim Lantern." The patient was 
in an awful state of collapse, and every expedient was tried to produce a rc-ac- 
tion in the system. Blisters or Sinapisms, composed of different ingredients, 
and spread on hlue paper, were constantly applied to the extremities, at the 
polls ; but they failed to draw. American " Gnats" instead of Spanish flies, 
were applied to the back, and " Clay" poultices to the abdomen ; and the cele- 
brated " Patent" gruel, (said to be a specific in every disease,) given as an in- 
jection ; hut there was no " Hope." " Sic transit gloria mundi!" 

After the physicians had despaired of " Sam's" body, the Doctors of Divini- 
ty were sent for to take care of his soul. An eminent Divine (from Kentucky) 
who visited him in his last moments, conversed freely with him on the subject 
of religion. His remarks were published in the Presbyterian Critic. He as- 
sured "Sam" that he need not be under any apipreheusions about his "future 
destiny;" that his conduct and principles were in perfect accordance with the 
Word of God, and he was perfectly orthodox. " Sam" had no fears upon that 
score ; he had endeavoured to obey the will of the " Grand Master," and what 
he had committed to him, he had kept to the day of his death. But, turning 
from the Doctor to one of the family — a gentleman from Lunenburg, a Mr. T., 
(who, it is thought, will never forget the remark and the impression it made on 
him,) he observed, he was conscious of his approaching dissolution, and he 
would die perfectly " contented," if he only knew xohat killed him. The Doc- 
tor gravely remarked, he believed that it was that " intense Democracy" of 
Virginia that was the immediate cause of his death. Mr. T., it will be remem- 
bered, retired from " Sam" " with a bird in the hand ;" and that " Goode" 
gentleman, whose death he predicted, is still alive. The above mentioned is 
the Kentucky Doctor that prophesied of " Sam," before his death, in Virginia, 
said the coming of " Sam" would be as the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven, 
" in silence, (secretly,) without observation." " That is the way," said he, 
"in which all 'grand' movements come." (Mark the expression, "grand 
movement," " Grand Master," " Grand Council," — everything grand about 
"Sam;" "Sam is one of the grandees.) Said that "Sam" would swallow 
Democracy and live forever; that "Sam's" family would swallow up every 
other family in America, and there would be left but one national, native-born, 
American family — "Sam's!!!" But if "Sara" swallowed a small dose of 
Democracy, and he died instantly, what would become of him if he should take 
a full dose ? The Democratic Medical Faculty has just prescribed the following 
dose for " Sam" in Virginia : Take — • 

Of Wise, 9 or 10,000 drops. 
" Congress 13 do. 

" Legislature 48 do. 

Given in pure Democracy, in broken doses, at the polls, in the day time — 
" Sam" will be dead by next morning. If " Sam" should revive, give the 
same in larger doses. For a " National" dose, see Democratic Dispensatory, 
See, also, " Rush" on Sam at the polls. 

We had predicted that poor " Sam" bad been deceived — that he had not ex- 
amined the ground of his hope. The Doctors have led him to rely on secrecy 
for salvation, and faith alone in the " Grand Master ;" preaching to him that 
"every grand movement must be secret," when they ought to have urged him 
to come out, and make an open, bold profession of his religion before the world, 
that it might be seen whether his practice accorded with his principles. Not to 



422- 

be "ashamed of 'Sam' before men;" "let his light so shine" — "not to put it 
tinder a bushel" — that we are " children of the day, not of the night." And, 
above all, to have referred him to his "Bible in hand" — particularly that pas- 
sage in John xviii : 19, (if he wished to come as the kingdom of heaven) : 
" The High Priest then asked Jesus of his doctrine." 20 : " Jesus answered 
him, I spake openly to the world : I even taught in the Synagogue and in the 
Temple, where the Jews always resort, and in secret have I said nothing." 
And, again : " This thing was not done in a corner" (or a culvert.) " Sam" 
ought to have been taught that the kingdom of heaven came openly, (though it 
came not with " observation," that is, with great outward pomp, and a particu- 
lar locality, as a temporal kingdom,) and not secretly, like the Jesuits ; that it 
had a visible organization, and that publicity was its grand characteristic. The 
70 disciples were sent out by the Ruler, himself, of the Kingdom, to preach 
before the world, that " the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand." So " Sam" 
ought to have sent out his " 72,000" disciples to preach his doctrines, and to 
announce his coming; and, verily, (according to Mr. Botts and other prophets,) 
they would not have gone over Virginia, before " Sam" would be in all his 
power and glory. But, on th^ contrary, whenever the Know Nothings were 
asked by the Democrats when the kingdom of " Sara" should come, and what 
its doctrines, they answered and said, " Sam cometh not with observation." 
Neither shall they say, Lo ! here, or, lo ! there, for, behold, " Sam" is within 
you. For as the lightning that lightneth out of the one part under Heaven, 
shineth unto the other part under Heaven, so shall " Sam" be in his day. Here 
the analogy of the Know Nothing commentators, between the kingdom of 
"Sam" and the kingdom of Heaven, fails. "Sam" goes, it is true, by the 
telegraph, but is unseen. Tbe lightning is seen under the whole Heavens. 
Not so with the great "Invisible and Invincible." And as it was in the days 
of Noah, (continue these same doctors, in the same chapter,) so shall it be also 
in the days of " Sam." The Democrats were carousing, say they, until the 
day that the Know Nothings were taken into the ark and the flood of Know 
Nothingism came and destroyed them all. Likewise, also, it was in the days of 
Lot: " They did eat and drink," &c. But the same day that "Sam" went 
out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from " Sam" on the Democrats, and 
destroyed them all. Even so shall it be in the days of " Sam ;" so saith the 
prophet. The delayed retribution is impending, and like every other great re- 
tribution, it takes those it falls on by surprise — (The " Critic") On whose 
head, tell me, did the fire and brimstone fall, at the polls in Virginia? Who 
was taken by surprise ? " Sam" was taken in his own net. Who is feasting 
and reveling now, till the flood comes again, walking in political lasciviousness, 
lusts of power, excess of wine, revelings, banquetings, and abominable idola- 
tries, wherein they think it strange that ye ruu not with them to the same ex- 
cess of not speaking evil of you ? It is " Sam" in Philadelphia, like Belshaz- 
zar in Babylon, giving a great feast to a thousand of his lords, his wives and 
concubines. But, a finger has written over against the dim " lantern," on the 
plaster of the wall; and (the magicians, astrologers, chaldeans, and soothsayers, 
are failing,) Daniel, as before, will be sent for to interpret it. Daniel will teach 
Sam that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men — that Sara had not 
humbled himself since his fall in Virginia. And, therefore, for the thought 
of his heart, this is the interpretation of the thing : Mene — Thy kingdom is 
numbered. Tekel — Thou art weighed. Peres — Thy kingdom is divided. In 
vain will " Sam" sing " he brought me into the ' banqueting house,' and his 
banner over me was love." Sam has prepared this great feast in imitation of 
Queen Esther's emancipation of the Jews, to liberate the slaves of the south ; 
and " Sam," like Haman, boasts that no man is permitted to come to the 
"banquet" prepared by the Queen, but himself. Yet all this (honor) avails 
me nothing, says he, so long as I see Democrats in office. But, mark ! Hamau 



423 

* 

will bang himself on the very gallows he is preparing for Mordecai ; and Es- 
ther will be celebrated by the Democrats. The Kentucky doctors also said, that 
the poor Democrats, (like the Demoniacs, when they saw Christ approach them,) 
would " scream at the bare mention of Sam" !!! Who screamed at the polls? 
'' Sam" — the *' invincible .Sam." And it turns out to be, that it was the Know 
Nothings, (whose name they say was legion,) that besought the Democracy that 
they mfght go into the herd of swine, (Northern abolitionists,) and, behold, the 
whole herd of swine rushed headlong down a precipice and were drowned in the 
sea, and the herdsmen, (the Northern Whigs,) that attended them fled into the 
city, (of Philadelphia,) and the whole city came out and besought the Democ- 
racy to depart out of their course. The Doctors mistook Democracy for De- 
mooiacy ! If " Sam" is so expert in casting out devils, it is a wonder he has 
not dispossessed himself, long ago. This, indeed, would be Bclzebub, casting 
out the Devil — '' Sam's" kingdom divided against itself — the harlot of Massa- 
chusetts complaining of the " whore of Babjlon!" 

As to the disease with which " Sam" died, there are various conjectures. 
Some think he died of Flux, or " Fusion," (as it is termed in modern nomen- 
clature,) from the appearance of his stools or "platforms" — that is, a running 
together of Northern Abolitionists with Northern Whigs, against the Catholics 
for power and office. The purging which Sam got at the polls did not indicate 
that his bowels were open, for physicians know, that, in dysentery, the purging 
is a secretion from the bowels themselves, while the food, or natural passages, 
are retained; so, that, although he disgorged (by the mouth) a good deal of 
what he had swallowed, and lost flesh, he was still bound in the bowels to the 
last. " Sam" had been subject to costiveness from his birth, both at the mouth, 
by oath, and in the belly. But a few weeks before his death, being alarmed at 
his situation, he was wont to go out very badly from his lodging, and take an 
aperient, but the physicians forbid it. Said that a sudden evacuation would 
produce such debility, it would certainly carry him off — to confine himself 
closely to his room and keep quiet. There is a great anxiety now to know,^ I 
am told, that of the different kinds of isms " Sam" eat, which it was that dis- 
agreed with him, so that they might diet him hereafter, for dysentery (running 
from the lodges) and obstinate costiveness of the bowels — secresy is hereditary 
in the family. They are still bound, as before, and now under the care of the 
Philadelphia doctors, who advise them to touch nothing but what agrees with 
them. But a Philadelphia doctor can't cure <' Sam" — he is too far gone. There 
are others of opinion that " Sam" died from sheer debility, (or "civil disabili- 
ty") from being overheated in the crusades. Some contend he had the Scrofula 
or King's Evil — hatred to free institutions — (as freedom of opinion, alien, &c., 
can never be mentioned in his presence without producing nausea at the sto- 
mach) which he inherited from old federal Sam and which broke out, now 
and then, in various branches of the Whig family, there being a predisposi- 
tion to the disease. Others again, presume that he was killed by swallow- 
ing too many different kinds of isms at once, as appears from a post mortem 
examination, there having been found about forty in his belly, in an indi- 
gestible state. The last one which he swallowed just before he died — Ame- 
rican or Know Nothingism — lodged in his throat, and produced Bronchitis at 
the polls. Some conjectured, and not without reason, that " Sam" had Hydro- 
phobia, from his dread of " Holy Water," as he had been bitt^jn by a canine 
fanatic at the North, during dog-days there. Others supposed he took cold tra- 
velling in Missouri and the territories of Kansas and Nebraska; while many 
think that he was wounded in a rencounter with the "Fugitive Slave Bill." 
Others think he died from emaciation — that he pined away from pure love for 
the Negroes, the Union and Native Americans, and envy at the prosperity of 
the South. Some think that he was literally consumed with lust for power and 
office, and they gave him the balsam of Know Nothingism. Many, again, sup- 



424 

pose that he died from refusing to take stimulus, from his conscientious scruples 
about " Maine Liqueur," and from substituting sour buttcr-niilk in the Sacra- 
ment, in the place of wine. While not a few are persuaded he suffered from 
religious melancholy, or derangement from discarding the Bible from his heart, 
and substituting Know Nothingism. But the most probable opinion is that the 
immediate cause of his death, was the shock from the Democratic batter}', when 
the positive and negative poles were brought together, to cure him of the Rheu- 
matism, which he got by going out too kite at night! All these, no doubt, con- 
tributed to "Sam's" sufferings. Never did a poor man groan under a greater 
complication of maladies, than did " Sam" in Virginia ; and it was, no doubt, 
best for him and the community, that he was taken away in his youth, for his 
disease was a contagious one, whatever might have been its nature in other re- 
spects. The Democratic Faculty, as soon as he died, recommended that the 
room (Virginia) should be constantly fumigated with vinegar, (Democratic prin- 
ciples,) and well ventilated. The clothing, as well as the bedding, ought to be 
often removed and all offensive odors (particularly the fteces) should be removed 
as speedily as possible. 

As to the character of " Sam" he was perfectly consistent in his " Platform" 
and practice. He stood broad in public estimation. No man doubted his vera- 
city, purity or piety. His Bible was always in hand, if not in heart. He loved 
(like the good Samaritan) his neighbor as himself. His charity covered a mul- 
titude of sins in others, and extended to all without exception. He was parti- 
cularly noted for entertaining stravgers, for he thought that thereby he might 
entertain angels unawares. In creed, Sam was a Unitarian, and required his 
followers to swear by and believe in one God, and he propagated this doctrine 
under the cover of political principle. 

If Sam's conscious scruples about slavery, wine, &c., in the Bible, did lead 
him to reject the New Testament and its authors, yet he very piously believed, 
like Mahomet, in the unity of God, and received a small portion of the Old 
Testament. "Sam" was a good author; he wrote pamphlets, in which he 
"denied that Christ made an intoxicating wine, and if he did, he was no Sa- 
viour for him." And he had the charity to believe, that " if Christ had known 
the misery he brought on the world by making an intoxicating liquor, he never 
would have made it." Sam's doctrines in the Church in which he was first 
brought up, had prepared him for any emergency in the State. But no man was 
more tolerant or more opposed to retaliation. He was perfectly willing that 
every man should think for himself in matters of religion. That all religious 
sects and denominations of professing christains, should have their own wtys of 
thinking and modes of worship ; that " every one should be fully persuaded 
in his own mind," was "Sam's" motto written on his forehead — a living epis- 
tle to be read of all men, whatever he might have kept behind. He read with 
horror, and tears in his eyes, how they used to fry men, for thinking, on grid- 
irons, and drive them out of the country just for opinion sake. Sam, although 
not a Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist, Episcopalian, or Roman Catholic, but 
of the Know Nothing persuasion, yet he loved all, and was all things to all 
Eien, peradventure, he might win some. He held tliat when in Rome, (where 
he often went,) we must do as Rome does. He had lately joined the Know 
Nothing church, and was a consistent member to the day of his death. He 
possessed a zeal for God, exactly according to Know Nothingism. He was a 
great Protestant. He protested against all party spirit and sectarianism in 
Church and State, but his own "American party." He "set aside all parties 
for the time at least," (Pres. Critic) except the Know-Nothing party. How 
beautifully consistent was " Sam !" Sam was a great Patriot. He so loved 
his country, that he called himself " American," "National Republican," 
" Star Spangled Banner," &c.; following the example of the good old Roman 
fathers who called themselves the opposite of what they were — Pius, Clement, 



425 

(mild) Innocent, Felix, (happy) Celcstinc, (Heavenly,) Sec. "Sam" was not 
only exceedingly exemplary in his own conduct and conveisation, but ho brought 
up his children in the way they should go, and they never lived to be old enough 
to depart from it. " Sam kept a family Record in his l^ible where he recorded 
all the births of his children. It is true he omitted the deaths, but this is ex- 
cusable, as his feelings were so tender, he couldn't think on the subject. At 
his death, " Sam" had 72,000 children in Virginia, besides grand children. — 
They wore as the stars of Heaven in multitude. He had been promised a nu- 
merous seed. It was said in " Sam" " all the nations of the earth should be 
blesse^," and he should live forever. " The American party involves the over- 
throw of every other part ij^' '■'■ Deinoeravy has lived lOO years; ' Satn' tviU 
sicaUow Democracy and live forever," is the language of the prophet of Ken- 
tucky. 

" Sam was born in Massachusetts, of royal parentage, and was descended in 
a direct line from a British Whig family. His ancestors emigrated from Eng- 
lafid to America before the revolutionary war. After the war, " British Whig" 
Sam, died, and left an only son, " Federal" Sam — a respectable honest man, 
but of bad principles — he became odious by his connection with the Adams 
family in Massachusetts. Federal Sam died, and left an only son, Whig 
Sam. He died and left an only son. National Republican Sam. He died, and 
left an only son. Whig "Sam" or " Sara Pure" again, named after his grand 
father, Whig Sam. This family separated from the Whig family South, and 
" Sam" married an abolition lady in Massachusetts, a relation of Adams, Gree- 
ley, Seward, Wilson, &c. 

The fruit of this connection, was Kuow-Nothing or American "Sam." So 
that Know Nothing Sam was an abolitionist on the maternal side, and on the 
paternal a Whig. Now this is the genealogy of " Sam." British Whig Sam 
begat Federal Sam. Federal Sara begat Whig Sam again. AVhig Sam begat 
National Republican Sam. National Republican Sam begat Know Nothing 
Sam. And all the generations of Sam, from British Whig Sam to Know 
Nothing Sam, are five generations. And the days of the years of Sam are 
about three-score years and ten ; and if by reason of strength they be four- 
score years, yet is their strength, labor and sorrow ; for it is soon cut off and we 
fly away. So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto 
wisdom — may all the Know Nothings pray. 

Sam having heard through the Board of Domestic Missions, (the Grand 
Council,) of the ignorance and superstitious devotion of the Heathen in Vir- 
ginia to the Constitution, his soul was stirred within him ; for he saw they were 
wholly given to idolatry. He determined to visit that destitute region, on a 
missionary tour, and preach to them the gospel of Know Nothingisra — to de- 
clare unto them the " unknown (or Know-Nothing) God" whom tiicy ignorant- 
ly worshipped ; but the climate proving unfavorable to his health, he died ia 
Virginia, May 24th, 1855. 

While on this mission South, American Sara married a Miss Know-Nothing, 
his first cousin, for he had relations in Virginia, both on the mother's and fath- 
er's side, who had settled in that State before, and in other States. This mar- 
riage united the Know Nothing family North, with the Know Nothing family 
South. But this match was opposed by the most respectable portion of the 
Whig family South, who, about the time of " Sam's" death, married into the 
Democratic family. We may observe here, that although Sam claims kin with 
the Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Jackson family, they are not blood re- 
lations. He tries to trace his pedigree to those f;\milies, (to get office.) Al- 
though he dogs Virginia for her family pride. — Sam's amiable consort, is now 
in desolate widowhood. She is advised to marry again, as soon as it is decent, 
as Sam left his matters in a bad condition and she needs funds. She is already 
beginning to was wanton and will marry. They say that the Know Nothing 



426 

church ought not to be burthened with the support of such. But the younger 
widows refuse ; (that is to take on the charity of the Church) for when they 
have begun to wax wanton, they will marry ; having condemnation because 
they have cast off their first faith. And with all this they learn to be idle, 
wandering about from North to South, and not only idle, but tattlers also, and 
busy-bodies in other men's matters, speaking things which they ought not. I 
will, therefore, (says the Grand Council) that the young women marry and 
bear children." Sam's widow needs not the slightest encouragement on this 
score, for it is reported that she was discovered recently ogling a young Demo- 
cratic gentleman' of the Know Nothing family at the funeral who owned ne- 
groes ! ! I 

Sam and his wife, it is well known, married each other for money, at first, or 
for " quills," as they say. But, alas ! they were both deceived, " deceiving and 
being deceived;" and when they came together, they found each other perfectly 
featherless ! ! ! Love had jumped out of the window, and they had commenced 
quarreling, and if Death had not parted them, they would have soon parted 
themselves. As a Had Nothing had married a Know Nothing, the public 
thought it was a first rate match at first, and the conjugal knot for brevity was 
written thus, "00." 

The widow Know Nothing declares now, that she is determined never to 
marry a man for office again ; it is too perishable a property — she means to 
marry next time for "darkeys." This will please the public and all parties 
south. She will never be caught running off secretly again with a man, but 
means to stand boldly before the parson and be married publicly in the Church, 
in the day time, and will be choice and exclusive in nothing but inviting per- 
sons to the wedding, or the banquet. She is said to be gone North now, look- 
ing out, a remarkable gay widow — it is thought that she puts out the idea, 
however, of marrying for negroes, merely to marry, and really dislikes negro 
property, (as she is a Northern lady,) and as soon as she is married, will go 
North and settle in a free State. We understand that such a match is about 
being made up now, by some of the family in Philadelphia. In the mean time, 
the widow Know Nothing is putting on the most coquetish airs imaginable, 
even in the church, which she enters with a lofty head and a most siguificant 
waddle. But the Democracy, because the widow of Sam is haughty and walks 
with a stretched-forth neck and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as she goes, 
and making a tinkling with her feet ; therefore, the Democracy will smite with 
a scar the crown (the Grand Council) of her head and discover her secrets ; in 
that day, will take away the bravery of her tinkling ornaments about her feet, 
and her curls and her round ties like the moon ; the chains, and the bracelets, 
and the muffles; the bonnets and the ornaments of the legs, and the head- 
bands and the tabets and the ear rings ; the rings and nose jewels ; the chan- 
geable suits of apparel, and the mantles, and the criraples and the crisping-pins, 
the glasses and the fine linen, and the hoods and the veils. And it shall come 
to pass that instead of a sweet smell, there shall be a stink ; and instead of a 
girdle, a rent ; and instead of well-set hair, baldness ; and instead of a stoma- 
cher, a girding of sackcloth ; and burning instead of beauty. Wherefore, let 
us Democrats walk honestly as in the day, not in rioting and drunkenness, not 
in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. Let us, therefore, 
cast off the works of darkness. For when they speak great swelling words of 
vanity (" American Nationality," Protestant civilization," " National Union," 
" National Republican," "Grand President," " Grand Council," "American 
Platform,") they allure through the lusts of flesh (for office) through much 
wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them, who live in error; while 
they promise (the slaves) liberty, they themselves are the servants of corrup- 
tion. But we warn the Democratic family of the mouth of this "strange wo- 
man," which is. as a " deep pit," or a " culvert." Listen to the counsel of the 



427 

"Wiseman:" "My son attend unto my wisdom and bow thine ear to mine 
understanding; 2. That thou maycst regard discretion, and that thy lips may 
keep knowledge; o. For the lips of a strange woman drop as honcy-conib, and 
her mouth is smoother than oil ; but her end is bitter as wormwood and sharp 
as a two-edged sword ; her feet go down to death ; her steps take hold on Ilell; 
lest thou should ponder the path of life, her ways are movable that thou canst 
not know them. Hear me now, ye children, depart not from the word of my 
mouth ; remove thy way far from her, come not nigh thQ,door of her Lodge." 
Her ways are moveable ! ! ! " 

Sam was decently interred, at the Polls in Virginia, where he died ; and many 
of the Democratic family attended the funeral and assisted at the burial. Ilis 
obsequies were conducted with all the honor and solemnity due to his character 
and station. The funeral sermon was preached by a minister of the Know 
Nothing denomination ; and the test was taken from Job 3, 3. Let the day 
perish wherein I was born, and the night it is said there is a man child conceived, 
(with the following inclusive:) 11. Why died I not from my mother's womb? 
13. For now should I have lain still and be quiet, I should have slept ; then 
had I been at rest. 14. With Kings and Counsellors of the earth, which have 
built destitute places for themselves. 16. Or, as a hidden untimely birth, I 
bad not been ; as infants which never saw light. 6, 5. Doth the wild ass bray 
when he hath grass ? or loweth the ox over his fodder ? My brethren have 
dealt deceitfully as a brook, and as a stream of brooks they pass away. 17. 
What time they wax warm they vanish. 18. The paths of their way are turned 
aside; they go to "nothing" and perish. 

17.5. But as you for all, do ye return and come now; for I cannot find one 
"Wise man" among you. 19.15. They that dwell in my house count me for 
a stranger : I am an outcast in their sight. 19. All my inward friends abhor 
me; and they whom I love have turned against me. 20.4. Knowest not thou 
this of old, since man was placed upon the earth? 5. That the triumphing of 
the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment. 15. He 
hath swallowed riches, and he shall vomit them up again. God shall cast them 
out of his belly ; 19. Because he hath oppressed and hath forsaken the poor ; 
20. Surely, she shall not be quiet in his belly. 21. There shall none of his 
meats be left. 23. When he is about to fill his belly, God shall cast the fury 
of his wrath upon him, and shall rain it upon him while he is eating. 27. 
This is the portion of a wicked man and the heritage of oppressors. 15. Those 
that remain of him shall be buried in death, and his widow shall not weep. 
29.2. that I were as in months passed ; 30.9. But now I am their song ; 
yea, I am a by-word (" Sam") to them : They abhor me, they flee from me. 

With many words did the preacher exhort the residue of " Sam" to work out 
their salvation with fears and trembling, knowing that the Grand Council 
" worked" in them to will and to do of his own good pleasure ; to make their 
calling and election sure in 1856. He encouraged the family with the hope of 
the resurrection of Sam. Our " Gnat," said he, was Clay born, and the Dem- 
ocratic decree had gone forth, to dust he should return, yet he shall resurrect. 
As to brother Flournoy, there was Stan-Hope in his name, and there should be 
" hope" in his death, that it was needful that Sam should put off this vile 
body, that he might come forth with a more glorious body and name. He 
predicted a millennium in 1856, when " all parties," and the Devil of Democ- 
racy should be chained a thousand years, and Know Nothingism have free 
scope and be glorified." " Sam should swallow Democracy and live forever." 
These services were introduced by singing, " Hark from the tombs," which 
was chanted with awful solemnity ; the whole congregation of Know Nothings 
were in tears. The second hymn, was the Eesurrection Hymn, and raised by 
" our brother Nat Claiborne :" 



428 

And must this body die, 

This feeble frame decay, 
And must these active limbs of mine 

Lie mouldering in the " Clay ?" 
Arrayed in glorious grace, 

Shall these vile bodies shine, 
And every shape and every fhce 

Look heavenly and divine. 

Then came the third hymn, raised by father Beale : 

On Jordan's stormy banks I stand, 

And cast a wishful eye, 
To Canaan's fair and happy land, 

Where mij 2}ossessions lie. 

■ Services closed by singing S. M. Dosology, and the benediction was pro- 
nounced : 

Give Federal " Sam" the praise, 

Give glory to his son, 
And to the childi en of his grace 

Be eqnal honor done. 

The congregation was then dismissed. 

What rendered the services peculiarly interesting, was, Brother Tazewell, 
who had arrived to a state of assurance and had not doubted of his election for 
some time, struck up in some distant corner of the church > 

When I can read my title clear, 

To mansions in the skies, 
I'll bid farewell to every fear. 
And wipe my weeping eyes. 

The whole congregation chimed in and sung with great animation at the pros- 
pect of the revival of Sam. 

The deceased left a will, in which, after distributing offices among all his 
children, he left the residue of his estate to his widow Know Nothing dowager. 

This will was made before his death, (as he was in bad health) and never 
altered. In a codicil to the will, he expressed a wish, that if his widow had a 
child, (which was expected) that after her death, her property should go to it, 
and if it died under age, it should revert to the Whig family. Messrs. Flour- 
noy, Beale, Patton, Claiborne, Tazewell and Watkins were appointed executors 
in Virginia, by the " Grand" court. They have just wound up Sam's matters, 
and find that he has nothing to give, and a great many of his children have been 
taken into the Democratic family for support. 

In the meantime the widow Know Nothing is in Philadelphia, expecting 
every day to have a lit'le one : and speculation is rife what sort of a thing it 
will be. Some think it will prove an abortion, others premature and it won't 
live. Some think it will be black, others think it will be mulatto. Some think 
it will be white on one side of its face, and black on the other : and that it will 
turn one side or the other North, or South, as it suits. Some think she will 
have twins differing in some particulars, but alike in the main, enough to show 
that they are old Sam's children. Tbey are now disputing about the name. 
They are trying to pick out a very popular name, as the old lady says, they 
mean to make him President after a while, if he lives to be grown. They say 



429 

he must not have any double name ; but '' National" Sam, " American" Sam, 
"Protestant llepublican" Sam, or some " Grand" general name, that will give 
Sam a free pass throughout the United States. I think they will call him after 
his grand-father, " National" llepublican Sam. Sam will beget a son in his 
own likeness. » 

• ROANOKE. 



[From the Petersburg South Side Democrat.] 

LETTER FROJI MR. WISE. 

We publish the following interesting corresgondenco between Mr. Wise and 
the committee appointed at a late meeting of the Petersburg democracy, to in- 
vite him to a barbecue to be given in this city at such day as he might desig- 
nate. 

[CORRESPONDENCE.] 

Petersburg, Virginia, May 31st, 1855. 

Sir: — At a meeting of the Democracy of Petersburg on the 30th inst., we 
were appointed a committee to invite you to an old fashioned Virginia barbe- 
cue, to be given on such day as you may appoint. It is with the greatest satis- 
faction that we now perform the duty. Your inappreciable services in the re- 
cent canvass have inspired the democracy of this city, and the adjoining coun- 
try, with an earnest desire to see you, and to extend to you their thanks for 
your eminent services and gallant bearing during the contest, and their earnest 
congratulations at the signal success that has attended them. 

The importance to free government of the principles involved in the late 
election, and their triumphant assertion, demands something more than an ordi- 
nary celebration of the event. 

The Democracy of the Cockade City, the only Democratic city in the Com- 
monwealth, are proud of their right to be the first to entertain as their guest 
their distinguished and gallant leader. 

Permit us to conclude by expressing to you, as individuals, our high admira- 
tion of, and regard for your private as well as your public virtues, and the hope 
that you will find it compatible, not merely with your feelings and wishes, but 
with your convenience also, to comply with the request of a portion of yoar 
friends and constituents. 

Very respectfully, 

R. K. Meade, Thomas Wallace, 

F. E. RiYES,. B. B. Vaugiian, 

J. J. Thweatt, 



Committee. 



[reply.] 



Onancock, Virginia, June 9th, 1855. 

Gentlemen : — In reply to yours of the olst ult., I beg you to present to the 
Democracy of Petersburg my most grateful thanks. May Heaven forever bless 
the Cockade City and the South Side counties around her, for doing their full 
part in defending the faith and the altars of Virginia. There is no section 
whose people I would be prouder to greet, none whose good opinions I am more 
desirous to deserve. Petersburg is with the country and the country ia with 



• 



430 

her. Her name, her honor, her interests, shall be enshrined by the Democracy 
— that steadfast, homestead Democracy of Virginia, which is too intelligent, 
too conscientious, and has too much at stake not to be conservative. But, gen- 
tlemen, however grateful I feel to you, you must allow me the indulgence of 
remaining quietly at home. I would have sacrificed much more than I did in 
the late canvass to prevent defeat under my lead, but I assure you the labors I 
underwent nearly cost me my life. I was absent nearly five months from my 
children and Mrs. Wise, whose health now requires my constant nursing. My 
domestic affairs too, need every every moment of my time until I must leave 
for Richmond. I therefore decline no less than three such invitations as yours 
by this mail. If I accept one, I must all, and I cannot accept any without 
great inconvenience. But let me say to you, that I hope our friends will seize 
the moment to strengthen the Democratic cause. Events are coming, you may 
rely on it, for which we ought to be prepared. How ? As early as is prudent 
reorganize, by having a conference of our friends throught the State. 

I am, faithfully yours, 

HENRY A. WISE. 

To R. K. Meade, Thomas Wallace, Francis E. Rives, B. B. Vaughan, J. J. 
Thweatt, Esqrs. 



From the Enquirer. 

LETTER FROM HEx\RY A. WISE. 

We copy from the last Elizabeth City (N. C.) Democratic Poineer, the fol- 
lowing eloquent letter, addressed by the Hon. Henry A. Wise to the Committees 
of Gates and other counties, who had invited hiui to address the people at 
Gatesville during the late campaign. The Pioneer says : " We publish in 
another column a letter from the Hon. Henry A. Wise, in reply to an invita- 
tion to attend the late Democratic Mass Meeting near Gatesville. We regret 
exceedingly that the gentleman who received it failed to place it in our hands 
at an earlier day. But, though the occasion is past, which called it forth it 
loses none of its interest thereby. It is characteristic of its author — bold, able 
and withering. It gives a passing notice to those Know Nothing emissaries 
who went to Virginia to electioneer during the recent canvass there, and ex- 
presses the earnest wish of the author for an opportunity to scourge them at 
their own doors in return. But the whole letter is full of interest. Read it, 
and if any regret is felt after rising from its perusal, it will be that you did not 
have an opportunity of hearing its distinguished author " scourge" Know 
Nothingisra on the stump." 

Only, (Near Onancock,) Va., ] 
July 1st, 1855. I 

James C Skinner, Esq. : 

Dear Sir : — I have delayed a reply to yours of the 18th ult., in order to try 
to make arrangements to accept the kind and pressing invitation of the Com- 
mittees of Gates, Perquimans, Pasquotank, Chowan, and Currituck, in North 
Carolina, to participate with them in a Democratic Mass Meeting to be held in 
the county of Gates, sometime between the 10th of July and the 1st of Au- 
gust next, the precise day to bo fixed by my appointment. I have the strongest 
desire to meet your Democracy. It holds the brighter than golden links which 
bind the two elder sister States of the South, North Carolina and Virginia 



431 . 

together. Those links are of our earliest history, of our revolution for inde- 
pcudence, of our past political struggles for republican freedom, of conniioa 
sacrifices and co-operation in the past and of common hopes for the future. The 
Federal party of old and the Fanatical party of the present day (the last is 
worse than the first,) never tried and never tended to unite themselves with the 
Southern States, or parties or men, but rather with Northern. Whenever De- 
mocracy has been dominant in North Carolina, that State has always been 
united with Virginia, which has always been Democratic; and whenever either 
Federalism or Fanaticism has prevailed there, Virginia and North Carolina have 
been divided from each other, both in councils and in action. I would gladly 
see them inseparable — inseparable as Macon was from JciFerson and Madison. 
Our fathers were as Jonathans and Davids to each other, and I would have 
their children so united as to preserve the union of all. North and South, by 
their inseparable union with each other ! No, not for selfish, or sectional ends 
would I bind thera together, but for national, constitutional, State rights, 
Union abiding ends, I would have them so solid a phalanx of freedom standing 
side by side and sustained by all their sisters of the conservative school, that no 
influence, no ^'ism," shall be able to assail or destroy the institutions of our 
confederacy. Those institutions, State and Federal, have been sorely and in- 
sidiously invaded of late. The invaders were daring enough to touch the sacred 
soil of this blessed mother Commonwealth. They mustered emissaries from 
every quarter — from abroad, from Exeter Hall in old England, from Canada, 
from New England, from New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Tennessee ; and I 
regret especially to be compelled to admit that some of the most venomous, 
desperate, most unscrupulous and audacious came here from the South of us — 
from North Carolina — to corrupt the popular mind, to instil poison and sow 
Dragon's teeth among us. They dared not intermeddle in our canvass publicly, 
on the " stump," in debate, before the people, but they skulked to secret con- 
claves, and by the light of " dark lanterns" which " burnt a gloom," they im- 
plored our voters to save them and their plots of mischief from exposure and 
explosion. They urged in their agony of midnight harangues that the battle 
was with them for life or death — that if they did not succeed they would sink 
down to lower depths of infamy — that if victory did not crown their conspiracy 
they would be dishonored and disgraced, would be a by-word and a ij^proach, 
politically forever ! They cowered before the lance of Democracy in Virginia, 
and the monstrous treason was here hurled to its despair. A Pandemonium 
has lately been held in Philadelphia, and there it was plainly proved that not 
the worst enemies of the South were from the North. The Sams of Virginia 
and North Carolina were no less traitorous to our Constitution and laws, Fede- 
ral Union and State llights, and homes and altars than were the priextcrafi 
party of the North, who would not seemingly keep them company or abide their 
councils. To expose these Southern emissaries in your midst, I would like, at 
their own doors, to scourge them for their nightly prowling about our doors in 
the late Virginia canvass. But these would be the least of ray aims in attend- 
in"' your District Mass Meeting. I would be glad to implore you in person to 
be true to the faith of the Fathers of this Republic ; to protect the fames of 
our Protestant churches; to forbid the bans between Church and State, which a 
subtle and wily priestcraft is contriving under the false cry of proscribing pope- 
ry ; to fight on and fight ever to have this land continue forever to be the 
" land of the free and the home of the brave ;" to contend for Constitutions and 
Bills of llights, and Statutes to reign over us, and not to subject us to the 
higher law of a secret oligarchy, worse than that of any German Gehime Ge- 
richt ! — to free us from the " dagger and the cord" of political assassination ! — 
to preserve the dignity and individuality and independence of voters at the 
polls ! — to save the laws from a conspiracy against their operation ! — to save the 
South from an Old England and New England combination, which would shave 



432 

the American Samson of his strength, knowing that cotton is his hair, and that 
cotton cannot be cultivated but by African slave labor in the land of the lairoon 
and the alligator, and which is, therefore, now striving to abolish African 
slavery in the South, or to dissolve the blessed union of these United States, 
now so strong, hy ilicir 'powa- to imll the cotton string, that they need no stand- 
ing army, no navy, no tax for either, whilst all the world besides is necessarily 
armed and taxed for the cost of war ! This is not half, this is not a beginning 
of what I would discourse you and all, North and South, about in these strange 
times, when old things seem to be passing away and all things seem to be 
'coming new. I would go back to the old. I would "recur to fundamental princi- 
ples," to the teachings of the llevolution, to the faith of the fathers, to the 
religion of the simpler and purer times of the liepublic. But I can't by pen 
or by word, or in public meeting any where, for a long time to come, I fear, in- 
dulge the wish to enlarge upon and illustrate and inculcate these themes. I 
wish you would rise to their full height. Organize, assemble, be watchful and 
be prepared to meet the enemy whenever and however he approaches. I regret 
I cannot venture to accept your invitation, but I will always be found doinf^ 
what I can, wherever! may be placed, to further the patriotic ends — the coun- 
try's ends you aim at with me. 

I beg you to assure your committee of my profoundest acknowledgment, and 
to accept for them and yourself individually my sincere thanks, and believe 
me. 

Yours in the bonds and brotherhood of a sound and conservative Democracy. 

HENRY A. WISE. 



MR. WISE AND THE NEW YORK HARDS AND SOFTS. 

The following letter, addressed by Mr. Wise to a friend, has been handed to 
us for publication. As it is an explanation, by Mr. Wise, of the letter which 
he addressed to " The Young Men's Democratic Union Club of the City of New 
York," and which has been the subject of very extensive criticism by jouruals 
in and out of Virginia, wo cannot in justice to him refuse the request that it 
be laid before our readers. It will be perceived that the sentiments contained 
in this letter very nearly correspond with those in an editorial upon the same 
subject which appeared in the Enquirer some days since : 

Only, near Onancock, Virginia, 
July 30th, 1855. 

My Dear Sir: — Yours of the 24th inst., calling my attention to an editorial 
of the Richmond Examiner of that day, headed " The New York Herahl and 
ourselves again — Gov. Wise and the Van Buren Democrari/," was not received 
until yesterday. It was missent to Old Point Comfort, and T can't account for 
such negligence in the mails. Fortunately, this morning, for the first time since 
it was written, I saw my letter in print, to which this editorial refers. I inclose 
it to you, and ask for its republication in the Enquirer, in order that every fair- 
minded person may judge of the justice of the Examiner to me. 

I was. addressed by neither Hards nor Softs from New York. A most patri- 
otic letter came to me from "The Young Men's Democratic Union Club," of 
the City of New York, congratulating the Democracy of Virginia upon their re- 
cent triumph over a common enemy, and breathing nothing but a greeting sym- 
pathy with our success. Was I to doubt or distrust any portion of our fellow 
countrymen who thus openly committed themselves to the same cause 7oith our- 
selves ? Was I to stop and enquire : — Tell me first, gentlemen, are you Hards 



433 

or Softs ? I must distinguish between you in my reply. — Certainly, such a course 
of response would have been unbcconnng and ungracious. And, if they had 
avowed themselves either Hard or Soft, was it not enough that they cordially 
congratulated the result of the Virginia election? Would not that of itself 
sho\Y the current and direction of their sentiments and sympathies; and would 
not both be such as wg could approve most heartily ? J?ut when you see that 
they were a Young Men's Club, and a Democratic Union Club, aiming to pre- 
serve the Union of the States, and to restore the union of the factious of the 
party in their own State, I ask, was it for me to meddle in any local and per- 
sonal divisions of our friends in a sister State ? No. I addressed them, as you 
see, hurriedly and hastily, but warmly and cordially as I would address them 
acain. And by reading the letter all may see icluit it was and wlud it is in 
which I "cordially, then, with alL my heart and all my head" united, and with 
wJiom I united. Again, I repeat, that my " heart and soul are with the * Young 
JUen's Democratic Union Club' " of New York, in their patriotic efforts to unite 
the Democracy in their State and everywhere, again on the National platform 
of '51 and '52. I will know no Hards and no Softs in Democracy. All are 
Democrats, or they are not. If Democrats, they will not repudiate the sentiments 
of my letter; and if Democrats, they will not foment dissensions in the Demo- 
cratic camp, in the very face of Democracy's most formidable foe. 

I have not a word of comment to make on the Examiner's article. If divi- 
sions must come amongst us in Virginia, they shall not come through me; and 
I say: "Woe unto him through whom they shall come !" The public is wit- 
ness of what I have borne in silence and patience, before and during the late 
cauv'ass. I mean to forbear to the last extremity, to promote the harmony and 
to unite the whole strength of our party in Virginia, and everywhere, for the 
defence of the rights of the States and of the Union of the States; for the 
maintainance of the Constitution and laws of the Federal Government; for the 
muniments of individual inalienable rights of the citizens of the States, and to 
prevent the Samson of America from being shorn of a single hair of his strength 
by the treason and madness which would "abolish African slavery or dissolve 
the Union," under the lead of the minions and money of a "Foreign Influ- 
ence." Certainly the Examiner will unite in these ends. You are welcome to 
publish this. 

Y'ours, hastily but truly, 

HENRY A. WISE. 



We submit the following correspondence to our readers without comment, 
feeling assured that tlioy will come to right conclusions in the premises, without 
any aid or explanation from us : 

CORRESPONDENCE. 

Hon. Ilenrrj A. Wise: 

Sir : — The strictures of the Richmond Examiner upon your letter of reply 
to the invitation of the " Young Men's Democratic I'nion Club," of this city, 
to address them upon the occasion of their last anniversary, and the false posi- 
tion in which it labors to place you, make it my duty, as the presiding officer of 
that associatiun, to convey to you in a few plain, but eainest and heartfelt words,, 
the feelings which prompted our invitation, and the sentiments awakened by 
your reply. 

The great purpose of our association, and chief article of its constitution, is 
the union of the Democratic party. To this end — as essential to the permanent 
28 



434 

and happy union of the States; to the preservation of all their rights as sepa- 
rate aod distinct sovereignties, co-ordinate in authorit}' and dignity 3 and to the 
just limitation of both State and Federal powers within the boundaries of a 
strict construction of the Constitution — all our efforts are directed. On that 
old Democratic basis we united as a political association in 1852, and upon that 
basis we stand, and expect always to stand. You can conceive, therefore, sir, 
the regret with which we saw the division in the Democratic party of this State, 
and the painful solicitude with which we have watched its development in sec- 
tional organization and divided effort. But this strange and novel antagonism 
between brethren of our own household excited in us no other feelings than 
mingled shame and sorrow at their suicidal folly, and a patient determination to 
stand steadily upon the high vantage ground of principles preferred by both, 
and await the moment when better councils and kinder influences should re-unite 
them against the common enemy. 

Your triumph in Virginia, which was in f;ict the triumph of our own old 
faith over the Proteus of Whig Abolitionism, in alliance with the new and per- 
nicious heresy of Know Nothingism, appeared to us to offer the very point and 
occasion of re-union. Every Democrat, of every faction, professed to rejoice in 
it. Oar joy was unfeigned; and we were glad to believe the sentiment as hon- 
est as it appeared to be universal. Why, then, we asked ourselves, should not 
all, claiming to be Democrats, join in the exhibition of their satisfaction at a 
result so honorable to our arms ; and, forgetting the mere personal and sectional 
quarrels, notoriously engendered by low ambition and the lust of office, seize 
the auspicious moment and heartily co-operate for a common good? Had they 
done so, your victory in Virginia would have been but the initiative in a series 
of brilliant triumphs^ and tbe whole field of the Union, swept by the irresisti- 
ble columns of the conservative Democracy, would have ceased to be insulted 
by the presence either of an open or covert foe to that Union which we cherish 
as our best inheritance, or the principles which ensure its perpetuity. It was 
not the fault of the Young Men's Democratic Union Club if that golden oppor- 
tunity was neglected. But our object is Union, not war. We desire to reflect 
upon no man. We are willing to believe it rather an unfortunate mistake than 
a wilful error. 

You, sir, however, understood us. You appreciated our motives, and shared 
our hopes. You answered our invitation to assist us in the undertaking 
promptly, warmly — right from the heart. You replied rather with the generous 
impulsiveness of friendship than the calculating coldness of the politician. And, 
sir, give us leave to say, however old-fashioned the notion may appear to the 
tradiag politicians of the times, even in politics, the heart is often wiser than 
the head. The sentiment which came warm and glowing from your heart, found 
and kindled an answering spark in ours. We thanked you, then, with a spon- 
taneous and irresistible impulse, a true Democratic confidence, for your hearty 
and comfortable words. We thank you again for their frank and manly repeti- 
tion ; — and we tell you that in every purpose which animates you or any other 
Democrat, the end of which is peace, union, the conservation of the rights of 
the States, the integrity of the constitution and the federal power, the defeat of 
sectionalism, fanaticism, and every pretended principle which would elevate it- 
self above the Constitution, and usurp the rights of State, territory or citizen — 
which would, in short, disturb the nice adjustment and harmonious proportions 
of our social and political structure — the Young Men's Democratic Union Club 
of New York are with you, and with them, Qordially — with all their heart and 
all their head. 

You say well, therefore, "that all may see what it was and what it is in 
which you cordially unite." It is something ^' tangible to feeling-as to sight;" 
at once the ethical and material good of this great Republican Confederation of 
thirty-one sovereign States, distinct yet. blended; obeying, like the planets, the 



435 

law wliich ordains them forever to revolve around a common centre, yet never 
centralizing; gravitating to each other iu the magnificent harmony of Republi- 
can order and unity, but never blending into the portentous consolidation pre- 
cursive of despotic power. 

It is Democracy — the Democracy of Jefferson and Jackson — with which you 
unite. It was the union of that Democracy we aimed at, and will never cease 
to aim at. It was to an occasion dedicated to the purposes of that Union we 
invited you. And if the apparent egotism of the illustration may be pardoned 
for its truth's sake, I think my election as presiding officer of the Association, 
on the very anniversary to which you were invited, afforded a very plain and 
unanswerable argument for its entire freedom from sectional prejudice or pas- 
sion. A Virginian by birth, although for many years identified with the Em- 
pire State in interest and affection, I can never forget to love the Old Dominion, 
nor adopt any part of a political creed not catholic enough to embrace both 
North and South. Neither my birth-place nor my sentiments were a secret from 
any member of the Association, and they did me the honor to elect me with a 
full knowledge that T recognized neither sectionalism nor fanticism as elements 
of the faith or the Constitution of the Democratic party. 

Let me assure you, as well as the "Examiner," in conclusion of a letter 
already trespassing too much upon your patience, that the Young Men's Demo- 
cratic Union Club of New York acknowledge no higher law than the Constitu- 
tion of the United States; no holier bond than the union of the States; no 
worthier purposea than the consolidation and success of that party upon whose 
well-tested principles they believe the whole glorious edifice can alone securely 
rest. In the letter of the Constitution they find the only rule of political faith 
and practice which can bind their country in a golden band and brotherhood of 
justice; and, whether the suicidal knife, which aims to sever it, be raised by 
mad fanaticism, or hell-engeudered ambition ; whether it be levelled at one por- 
tion of the Union or the other — before the bosom which it threatens — before 
the rights it would destroy — before the sovereignty or the citizen it would im- 
molate upon the altar of its insanity — they trust always to see the Democratic 
party throw the shield of its principles and the protection of its power; and 
their highest aim and ambition is to be instrumental, however humbly, iu uni- 
ting every true-hearted Democrat behind that invulnerable defence. 

I have the honor to be, sir, 

Most truly and respectfully, 

Your obedient servant, 

S. WALLACE CONE, 

President of the Young Men's 

Democratic Union Club, N. Y. 

p. s. — You are at liberty to make whatever use you may think proper of the 

above. 

S. W. C. 



Only, near Onancock, Va., } 
AuciL'ST 23, 1855. ) 
To S. Wallace Cone, 

President of the Young Men's Democratic Union Club, New York : 

Dear Sir : — Yours of the 14th instant reached me most opportunely. Before 
this you will have seen that the Richmond Examiner has handsomely acknowl- 
edo-ed its mistake. It is well, perhaps, that it mistook your meaning and mine. 



436 

Attention has been drawn to your noble and patriotic purposes, and they will 
be approved and be assisted by the entire Democracy of the South. Those 
who love and would abide by the wise federal Constitution and the sacred Union 
of our States, in the South, kuow and feel that we have " a host of freedom, 
which is the host of God," for our friends in the North. We will not tolerate 
the idea of a separation from you for an instant, and we will depend upon your 
faith and your devotion to co-operate with us in defending the good work of our 
fathers against internal as well as external foes. We will, North and South, 
defend the Rights of the States, and the most precious of these : the Rights of 
each State to thp Blessed Union of the States. We will defend the Constitu- 
tion of the Union as the only standard of State Rights. And we will defend 
the individual and inalienable rights of man : — his rights of property and his 
person, all his finite rights which pertain to poor mortality, and above all his 
infinite right, the only one " not of the earth earthy," his heaven reaching 
ri'^ht, which pertains to immortality — his right of religious liberty — his freedom 
of conscience — his right to easement in the way to God ! 

Thus I understood you, thus I took your greeting, and thus I greeted you 
back. Carp who will, I will grasp your hands as a brother upon the pledges to 
these rights, for which I am willing to stake " life, fortune and sacred honor." 
But no one will object. Petty jealousies will be laid aside, manly patriots will 
summon sober reason to their sides, and we will triumph in the right. God 
grant our country and its friends His guidance and His rule ? Yours, devoted- 
ly, with all my head and heart. 

HENRY A. WISE. 



THE DOWDELL FESTIVAL IN ALABAMA. 

[From the Montgomery Advertiser and Gazette.] 

In a brief notice of the Dowdell festival, written for our last issue, we pre- 
sented an abstract of the speech of our distinguished townsman, Mr. Yancey, 
which 'the reader has doubtless perused with interest. We should like also to 
present a sketch of the speeches delivered by the other orators of the occasion; 
but we ;"ire unable to do so, for the reason that no notes were taken of them. • 

One of the most intelligent and patriotic of Alabama's sons, (not a public 
Bian, however,) in a private letter, says : " Our gifted and noble friend, Yan- 
cey, is right in theory, as far as he goes, except that ho haa not quite /ni/h 
enough in the National Democracy. I want Southern niiion and nelf-reliance, 
in order, first, to strengthen and build up the conservative national Democracy; 
and, secondly, in the ' last resort,' to enable us to sustain ourselves against the 
world ; but "let us live in the Union if ir.c mcvj. All the Northern Democratic 
leaders are with us on practical issues." 

We concur with our correspondent in the opinion that Mr. Yancey underesti- 
mates the assistance the South is likely to derive from the National Democracy 
of the North. I\Ir. Yancey thinks that our gallant friends in the North are 
already rendered powerless by the predominance of Abolition sentiments in that 
quarter. We, on the contrary, have strong hopes that a reaction has com- 
menced in several of the free States in favor of the true principles of the gov- 
ernment. From the tone of the press, and other indications, we think that Mr. 
Bright will be sustained in Indiana, and Mr. Douglas io Illinois. We have 
strong hopes, also, of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New Hampshire, and Michi- 



437 

gan, tbrough the influence of their conservative statesmen and the " sober, 
second tiiought" of their people. We maybe too sanguine, but wo cannot 
withliolu the expression of our opinion that the Soutli has much to expect from 
the National Democracy of the North. 

But 3Ir. Yancey is right in impressing upon the minds of the Southern 
people the idea of self-reliance. "Forewarned," let us be "forearmed and 
well prepared" for future emergencies. 

In connection with the proceedings at the Oak Bowery Dinner, we would call 
attention to the letters of Gov. Wise, Gov. Winston, Mr. Bullock, and Mr. 
Gwin, in reply to the Committee of Invitation. They were not received in 
time to be read at the dinner, but they will be perused with pleasure by the re- 
publicans who were present, as well as by many who were not. 

The letter of Mr. Wise will attract particular attention. The opening sen- 
tence of his letter is in response to a complimentary passage in the note of invi- 
tation. The whole letter is eloquent and spirit-stirring. We understand that 
one of the regular toasts prepared for the occasion was in these words : 

" Henry A. Wise : The Knight sans peur sans reproclie — who met ' Sam ' — 
the redoubtable Sam — Sam the Sampson on the plains of Virginia, and sent 
him, like Caius Marius, 'to a marsh in Italy' — a son of whom the grand old 
' mother of States and statesmen' might well have been proud in her best days; 
when the national coronal was lustrous with her jewels — a Tribune of the 
people ! He deserves the highest office in the nation, and if he lives will at- 
tain it." 

[letter from MR. WISE.] 

Onlf/y near OnancocJc, Va., ) 
August 23, 1825. j 

Gentlemen : — Yours of the loth inst. came to hand yesterday. 

I stand on the shore of my " Ocean home," and meet Alabama, coming 
greeting, with arms and bosom open, with expanding chest and dilating nostril, 
as I have often met Heaven's sweet airs and Ocean's waves as they came with 
inspiring and re-invigorating freshness. The blessed child State seems to rush 
to the arms of the mother State, and Virginia takes Alabama close home to her 
bosom, and embraces her with motherly pride and affectionate joy. I did not 
for a moment doubt or distrust her. She is too Southern, too conservative, too 
Constitution-loving, too true to State Eights, and too fondly cherishes the most 
precious of State Rights — the Union of the States — and prizes too inestimably 
the inalienable rights of individual man — his finite rights of ])roperty and rights 
of person, and above all his infinite right — the only one not " of the earth, 
earthy " — the only right of poor humanity pertaining to immortality — the 
Heaven-high right of lleligious Liberty — the soul-saving right of Freedom of 
Conscience. She is too true to the American Revolution, and to the memories 
and faith of the Fathers of the Republic, ever to have betrayed the great cause, 
the holy mission of America upon Earth ! She was too intelligent to be duped 
by a worse than veiled prophet; she had too much integrity to countenance po- 
litical imposture ; she was too Protestant and too Christian to allow the ways 
to God to be barred and bolted by sectarian bigotry and intolerance; she loved 
the Churches of her faith too well to allow them to be corrupted by a touch of 
party political power, and by leaving the spiritual for the carnal kingdom ; and 
she was too patriotic to permit the liberties of the State to be destroyed by an 
union of Church and State, brought about by a Priestcraft Power ambitiously 
aspiring to lay its hands on temporal things, and to control conscience, and will 
and reason, and to make laws, and to debate " what we shall eat and what we 



438 

shall drink, and whorewitli we sliall be clothed I " The hypocrites who skulked 
in the shades between '< midnight and one hour before daj-break/' with " dark- 
lantern " in hand, making night hideous with howls of "down with the Pope !" 
were dragging the robes of Christ's righteousness through the mire of party 
politics to set up a Protestant Popery here, in America, instead of leaving Ca- 
tholic Popery to die of itself in Italy ! The impostors who exultingly boast 
that " /Americans shall rule America " — as if, from Washington's days down to 
these days of "isms," America has not been all the time ruled by x\mericans — 
exclaim against " Foreign influence," and are letting in that European, that 
3iritish-born intruder, whom they call " Sam " — the most insidious foreign foe 
who has ever entered the back door of our country, like a thief in the night ! 

The Old World is ravaged by war, and yet we need no standing armies, no 
navy, and to pay taxes for none. Why ? It is, in three words, because — 
" Cotton is King !" Uncle Sara, not Sam, holds the British Lion, and the 
Gallic Cock and Russian Black Eagle by cotton strings, which he may pull at 
any time. Cotton is Power, Cotton is Peace-Maker ; Cotton is the hair of the 
Sampson of the United States of North America, and Cotton can be planted, 
and hoed, and gathered, and ginned, and packed and sent to market, in the land 
of the Southern suri, by African slave labor alone. Hence the cry, that " Af- 
rican slavery shall be abolished, or the American Union shall be dissolved." 
Exeter Hall has so whispered to Williams Hall, of Boston, and New England 
Preachers of Christian Politics have joined the British, the Old England policy 
and party cry, that the Nebraska Bill shall be repealed — no slave territory shall 
be admitted as a State— slavery shall be abolished, or the Union shall be dis- 
solved ! Either alternative would shave our Sampson of his strength. 

The Kansas and Nebraska Bill repealed the Missouri Compromise, which was 
the first act to violate Washington's injunction not to recognize geographical 
lines — which was the first to make a border between the North and the South — 
which was the first to begin a separation of the States ! Now, the Kansas and 
Nebraska Bill simply restores us to statu quo ante 1819, '20, where Washing- 
ton and Hancock, Adams and Jeflerson, Virginia and Massachusetts, and the 
old Thirteen, stood. It brought us back to the Constitution. The question is, 
shall it be repealed, and a heart-burning statute be restored to the place of the 
Constitution ? Virginia votes no. North Carolina no, Georgia, glorious Geor- 
gia, no, Alabama no. The entire slaveholding states will, notwithstanding the 
hesitancy of gallant but blood-stained Kentucky, all unite in shouting, as a 
host of Freedom, as friends of America — 

" African slavery shall not be abolished ! 

" The American Union of States shall not be dissolved ! " 

Then let us abide, under the ^gis of the Constitution and the Laws. To 
defend these, I will stake " life, fortune and sacred honor," against internal as 
well as external foes. 

The South is full of emissaries from abroad, and they must be guarded 
against. We have a host of patriotic friends in the North, and they must be 
cherished as well-beloved brothers. There are patriots there who will rally to 
rescue and restore the sacred things which are in danger, and I implore you, for 
their sakes, for our own, to favor no sectional war, to countenance no alienation 
of feeling from the North, but to rely on reason and argument, and a moral 
sense of right, and to adhere ourselves to the Constitutional compact. This 
will save us and save all, if anything will; and if nothing will, we will be in- 
nocent. We will not bear the world's curse of aiding to destroy the only hopes 
of mankind for the light, and love and charity of human freedom. And if the 
worst comes to the worst, " God will speed the right." 



439 

I cannot leave home before January next, and could not be in time for your 
feast to your gallant Representative, the lion. J. F. Dowdell. Feast hini well, 
and let him roll the people's good cheer like a sweet morsel under his tongue, 
and let that tongue ever speak the sentiments of Truth and Justice to the 
People, and let them ever repay him with their '* sweet voices." 

I cordially greet you back, and am 

Yours, devotedly, 

HENRY A. WISE. 

To W:m. F. Sanford, Jno. H. Thomas, Christopher Davis, and others, 
Committee. 



HEXRY A. WISE TO THE BOSTON NEGRO STEALERS. 

Only, near Onancock, \ 
Aceomac County, Va., Oct. 5, 1855. j 

Gentlemen : — On my return home, after an absence of some days, I found 
yours of the 19th ult., " respectfully inviting me to deliver one of the lectures 
of the course on slavery, at Tremont Temple, in the city of Boston, on Thurs- 
day evening, January 10th, 1856 ; or, if that time will not suit my engage- 
ments, you request that I will mention at once what Thursday evening, between 
the middle of December and the middle of March next, will best accommodate 
me." 

Now, gentlemen, I desire to pay you due respect, yet you compel me to be 
very plain with you, and to say that your request, in every sense,' is insulting 
and offensive to me. What subject of slavery have you " initiated" lectures 
upon ? I cannot conceal it from myself that you have undertaken, in Boston, 
to discuss and decide whether my property, in Virginia, ought to remain mine 
or not, and whether it shall be allowed the protection of laws, federal and State, 
wherever it may be carried or may escape in the United States ; or, whether it 
shall be destroyed by a higher law than the constitutions and statutes ! 

Who are you, to assume thus such a jurisdiction over a subject so delicate and 
already fixed in its relation by a solemn compact between the States, and by 
States which are sovereign? I will not obey your summons nor recognize your 
'jurisdiction. You have no authority and no justification for thus calling me to 
account at the bar of your tribunal, and for thus arraigning an institution es- 
tablished by laws which do not reach you and which you cannot reach, by cal- 
ling on me to defend it. 

You send me a card, to indicate the character of the lecturers. It reads : 

" Admit the bearer and lady to the Independent Lectures on Slavery. Lec- 
ture committee, S. G. Howe, T. Gilbert, George F. Williams, Henry T. Parker, 
W. Washburn, B. B. Mussey, W. B. Spooner, James W. Stone." 

It is endorsed : 

" Lectures at the Tremont Temple, Boston, 1854-5. November 23, Hon. 
Charles Sumner, Rev. John Pierpont, poet. December 7, Hon. Salmon P. 
Chase, of Ohio. December 14th, Hon. Anson Burlingame. December 21, 
Wendell Phillips, Esq. December 28, Cassius M. Clay, Esq., of Kentucky. 
January 4, Hon. Horace Greeley. January 11, Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. 
January 18, Hon. John P. Hale. January 25, Ralph Waldo Emmerson, Esq. 
February 8, Hon. Nathaniel P. Banks, Jr. February 15, Hon. Lewis D. 
Campbell, of Ohio. February 22, Hon. Sam. Houston, of Texas. March 1, 
Hon. David Wilmot, of Pennsylvania. March 8th, Hon. Charles W. Upham." 



440 

All Hbnorahles and Squires, except those who are Reverends! The card does 
verily indicate their characters by simply naming them. And your letter, gen- 
tlemen, is franked by " C. Sumner, U. S. S." With these characteristics, I 
am at no loss to understand you and your purposes. 

You say, '^during the next season, a large number of gentlemen from the 
South will be invited," &c., &c. I regret it, if any others can be found in the 
slaveholding States to accept your invitation. You plead the example of Gen. 
Houston. It is the last I would follow. I have no doubt that you accorded 
very respectful attention to him last winter, and were very grateful for his ser- 
vices in your cause. 

You offer " one hundred and fifty dollars to be paid to the lecturer, he bear- 
ing his own expenses." Let me tell you that Tremont Temple cannot hold 
wealth enough to purchase one word of discussion from mo, there, whether 
mine, here, shall be mine or not; but I am ready to volunteer, without money 
and without price, to suppress any insurrection, and repel any invasion which 
threatens or endangers the State Rights of Virginia, or my individual rights 
under the laws and constitutions of my country, or the sacred Union, which 
binds Slave States and Free States together in one bond of National Confedera- 
cy, and in separate bonds of Independent Sovereignties ! 

In short, gentlemen, I will not deliver one of the lectures of the course on 
Slavery, at the Tremont Temple, in Boston, on Thursday evening, January 
10th, 1856; and there will be no Thursday evening between the middle of 
December and the middle of March next, or between that and doomsday, which 
will best accommodate me for that purpose. 

I give you an immediate answer, and at my earliest convenience, indicate to 
you that " the particular phase of the subject" that I will present is, delibe- 
rately : TO FIGHT IF WE MUST. , 

Your obedient servant, 

HENRY A. WISE. 

To S. G. Home, Phys. and Sup't Blind Inst. 
Jno. M. Clark, High Sheriff. 
Sam'l May, Merchant. 

Philo Sanford, Ex-Treasurer State. » 

N. 13. Shurtlett, Phys. and Antiquarian. 
Jos. Story, Pres't Com. Council. 
Thos. Russell, Judge. 
Jas. W. Stone, Phys. 



From the Boston Advertiser, (Whig.) 

LETTER FROM MR. WISE. 

We take pleasure in laying before our readers the subjoined letter from Hon. 
Henry A. Wise, the Governor elect of the ancient Commonwealth of Virginia, 
addressed to the Lecture Committee of the Mercantile Library Association, in 
answer to an invitation to lecture in this city before that association during the 
coming winter. The truly national tone of this letter must renew in the mind 
of the reader the patriotic feelings which of old knit together the colonies of 
Massachusetts and Virginia in times of darkness and trouble ; and will cause a 
regret that Mr. Wise's preparations for the duties of the important office on 
which he is about to enter, will prevent his accepting the invitation, and will de- 
prive us of the pleasure of welcoming to Boston so distinguished a guest, who 



441 

(as he informs us iu the letter) has never yet visited any part of New Eng- 
land. 

This letter is the more significant, because another committee in belialf of 
the "lectures on slavery," in their indiscreet zeal, by calling upon Mr. Wise 
to lecture upon slavery iu Boston, succeeded in pestering him into writing a 
letter, which we are free to say we regretted to see in print, though we can 
easilv understand the feeling of annoyance that gave rise to its sharpness of 
expre.^sion. Whatever ill feeling (if any) the former letter may have engen- 
dered in the minds of our riglit-tbinking citizens, will be dispelled on the peru- 
sal of that which we publish below : 

Only, near Onancock, Va., Nov. 11, 1855. 

Gentlemen : — Yours of the 2d inst. was awaiting my arrival at home yester- 
day, from a temporary absence at Washington City. 

1 gratefully acknowledge the compliment of your invitation to deliver one of 
a course of lectures, during the present winter, before the Mercantile Library 
Association of Bosston. 

I am well assured of the highly respectable character, and of the laudable 
objects of your litcrari/ association, and no body of the kind could have been 
more honored than you have been by the illustrious orators and statesmen who 
have shed upon your lectures the lights of their great minds. I have no doubt 
too of the " cordial welcome" I would receive from " very many" of your hos- 
pitable citizens; but it is not in my power, gentlemen, to accept your invitation. 
The situation of my private affairs, and the duty of preparing foi* months to 
come for new scenes of public service, will engross all my time and attention 
the whole of the coming winter. I have been compelled to decline every call 
of the same kind from many quarters in ray own State, and other States besides 
yours. 

I sincerely regret this the more, because I have never yet set my font on the 
beloved soil of that portion of my country called New England. This has not 
been owing to any antagonism on my part towards that favored section. Mas- 
sachusetts especially, I have been taught to venerate and cherish as the elder 
sister of Virginia. When I reflect upon their attitudes and relations in the 
darkuess and gloom of the night of revolution — when I listen to their hails, 
sister to sister — Virginia to Massachusetts, Massachusetts to Virginia — in the 
" times which tried men's souls" — when I watch the fires kindling on the 
heights of Boston, and see Virginia going forth across the rivers and over the 
land, by the sea, leading her best beloved son by the hand, dripping blood and 
tears at every step there and back, leaving htm there on post to guard your very 
city, and to make the oppressors evacuate it ! — and when I contrast this picture 
witli the present state of things in our confederacy, which makes you assure me 
" that the feelings of the people of Massachusetts towards my State are not 
those of antagonism," I gush forth in anguish and ask — Why a necessity for 
such assurance? Why any antagonism between these, the devoted States of 
Hancock and Washington ? JMay God in his mercy and in love guide them, as 
of yore ! May they ever be cemented in union by the blood of the revolution ! 
And whenever another night of gloom and trial shall come, may they hail and 
cheer each other on again to victory, for civil and religious liberty. 

Yours truly, 

HENRY A. WISE. 

To Charles G. Chase and others, committee, &c. 



442 



POWERFUL LETTER FROM THE HON. H. A. WISE TO THE NA- 
TIONAL DEMOCRATIC 31EETING IN NEW YORK. 

Only, near Onancock, 
Thursday, October 18, 1855. 

Gentlemen : — I gratefully acknowledge yours of the 10th, post-raarked the 
13th, and regret that it is not in my power to accept your invitation to attend 
and address a mass meeting of the National Democratic party of the City and 
County of New York, at the Metropolitan Tiieatre, on Monday, the 22d inst. 
The situation of my family is such that I cannot leave home before some time 
after the 22d instant, and I could not, from the dale of receiving your letter, 
reach New York by that day in person ; but I give you a fervent, and I would 
gladly make it an effectual response. 

I have carefully examined the platform which yoa inclosed of your late Con- 
vention, held at Weiting Hall in the City of Syracuse, August 23, 1855, and I 
hail the National Democracy of New York as brethren worthy to be accredited in 
faith and accepted in fellowship by every patriot in the land. You are national, 
not in the sense of consolidation, but in the constitutional sense ; you are na- 
tional, as opposed to exclusive and sectional; and you are national, not like the 
party of '' ebony and topaz," not like the " light-houses in the skies" of the 
younger Adams in 1828, nor like the " fusion of confusion" party in these 
days of later "isms;" not "National Republican," but you are "National 
Democratic." You assert your devotion to the Constitution ; reindorse, in the- 
ory and practice, the resolutions of the Democratic National Conventions of 1848 
and 1849, and you obey the lesson of the fathers by recurring to frugality and 
economy, and to all " the fund.imental principles of free government" in the 
admiuistration of public aifairs. In all these I heartily concur, and unite still 
further with you upon the doctrine of State Rights and strict construction of 
the Constitution as applied to all questions, and particularly to domestic State 
questions, and the principle of non-intervention by Congress, so as not to deprive 
States of their sovereign rights, individuals of their private rights, and the peo- 
ple of the Territories of their just and natural political powers. 

The Constitution, and not any temporary and temporizing compromise stat- 
ute, is the true and only standard of national right. The Constitution, in its 
strict sense, and not according to the latitudinarian construction of a loose fed- 
eral majority ; the Constitution, which leaves all powers not expressly granted 
•where it found them, the reserved rights of the sovereign States; the Constitu- 
tion, which created certain federal relations and rights of private citizens, among 
the most important of which is perfect equality between citizens of the res- 
pective States on the common grounds of federal jurisdiction ; perfect comity 
between the citizens of State and States, and common property between them 
in the national domain and dominion ; the Constitution is the law of our Con- 
federacy. It is no respecter of persons ; it holds all alike, and equally under 
its protecting guardianship wherever it applies. It pries not into your private 
possession, nor into mine. It knows not whether you own one species of pro- 
perty or I another. It recognizes us only as citizens of co-equal State sove- 
reignties, who are confederated under its shield, and it provides protection for 
whatever right belongs to either of us on ground which belongs to both. The 
mere municipal authority, the Congress cannot deprive States and their citizens 
of this equality, this comity, and this common property of the Confederacy. 

If you may go to the common Territory with what is rightfully yours in New 
Y'^ork, I may meet you there with whatever is lawfully mine in Virginia. Con- 
gress may not say that I shall not migrate with slave property and hold it there ; 
for if they may say that, they may, in like manner, say that you shall not go 



443 

there with horses and household goods, and hold them ; and if they may declare 
against the right of either, tliey may invade inalienable rights, and enact laws 
not within the competency of legislation. 

The sovereign act of definiog what shall and what shull not be tenable pro- 
perty by the citizen, can be determined only by the conventional power of the 
people, forming organic law — a Constitution changing a Territory into a State. 
Until the new State comes into being, no power upon earth can lawfully deprive 
you of your horses and household goods, or me of my slave in Kansns, unless 
the private property be taken for public use with just compensation. And, 
gentlemen, you say truly " that the peace and quiet of the coi ntry demand that 
it should be left to the people of the Territories to determine for themselves," 
what their Constitution of Government shall be, not only in respect to slavery, 
but every other local question. The public peace is endangered by this " dis- 
turbing subject." It is a practical question of right, and threatens to be one 
of force. Force has already been exerted " on the border," and in the face of 
this danger there is an organized " Fusion" which must, if persisted in, compel 
a resort Xo arms in order to resist evil spirits, combined to repeal the " Kansas 
Nebraska bill, and to re-establish the Missouri Prohibition." 

Prior to 1819-20, the Constitution reigned supreme on this subject. It was 
then invaded by a repealable, partial, sectional statute, called the Missouri 
Compromise. It was the first separation of the States — it first sectioned the 
country like a survey of the public lands — it first said to the people the divi- 
ding language of Lot and Abraham — to some " go North" to some " go South" 
— it was the first line which divided North from South, more in feeling than in 
fact. Did it not make a geographical demarcation — a line of latitude, the 
boundary of legal limitations, and determine that what was constitutional on 
one side of it, should be unconstitutional on the other side of it ? No, said its 
friends at the time of its passage, it leaves slavery to be governed by the law 
of climate. It is a climatory not a territorial or sectional line. It means to 
" follow nature," to let Jack Frost be king of the subject ; as slavery was pro- 
fitable South, and as frost pinched negroe's toes and fingers too sharp north of 
36.30 for it to be profitable there, the question never should be raised con-sla- 
very south, nor pro-slavery north of that line of latitude. Well admitting this 
to be a more consistent and rational construction of the " agreement to disa- 
gree," did the " fanatics of fusion" so abide it? Never ! In every phase of 
the Compromise, first and last, they have broken its letter and spirit. Inces- 
santly they have raised the question con-slavery South and North, East and 
West everywhere. In the States and Territories and District, in the Indian 
counJry on the trade in transitu between States, Districts and Territories, on 
the acijuisition of territory, on the organization and admission of States into 
the Union, on questions of peace and war, ever, everywhere, always, in season 
and out of season, they have raised the question against slavery, until they 
have, on various occasions, nearly raised the very demon of civil war and disu- 
Bion ! They have harbored English emissaries ; raised foreign funds ; wielded 
associated influence and capital ; wearied Congress with petitions ; fatigued the 
public mind with compromises ; filled it with reviling and abuse ; pensioned 
press, pulpit, preacher, teacher ; run underground railroads ; spirited away 
runaways; have scattered broadcast tales of holy horrors; painted on the 
stage, scenes ; written log-cabin novels ; lectured, ranted, rioted, until they have 
made us a divided people, until they have cut the continent in two by a line of 
border feuds ; until they have separated our churches ; set us apart socially, at 
the waterino- and other places, and until they have engendered a sectional an- 
tagonism more becoming enemies in hostile array, than tolerant neighbors even, 
much less " united brethren" — children of one father — children of a common 
country, the only children the Father of that country ever had, whose farewell 
is still our warning ! 



444 

Witliin the year I have stood on the rock of Point Pleasant overlooking^ the 
grave of Cornstalk, the battle ground between the Indian and the Long Knife, 
fattened by the blood of the conquest, whereby Virginia secured the eminent 
domain of the whole Northwest Territory. There before me spread out that 
vast domain, now a giant group of civilized sovereignties, empires of power, a 
compact tier of free States ! Who made them free States ? Their mother 
slave State. Virginia, by her deed of cession, on her own conditions, with a 
liberali-ty large as a love of continental country, made Ohio and her sisters of 
the Northwest Territory free States. Iler's was no Wilmot Proviso. It was a 
whole and entire grant to freedom, the first ever made upon earth like it, and 
made before the Constitution of the United States was formed. After " a more 
perfect Union" was formed, a permanent, uniform, universal, organic law began 
to reign. It left the domestic institutions with the States. It defines the only 
cases where the Federal authority can intervene. One of the cases is that of a 
slave flying from one State to another, he shall be restored to his master. By 
a double tier of laws. Federal and State, by constitutional and by statute laws, 
the master may reclaim him. And yet, gentlemen, though thus foftified by 
laws, organic and legislative. State and Federal, I might as well have a thousand 
dollars floating on a chip in the Ohio river, as to own a slave worth that sum 
on the Virginia shores of that river! What then? The laws do not reign! 
The very free soil which Virginia first consecrated on the continent is made the 
underground for the railroads of her runaways ! 

Gentlemen, Mr. Webster once asked a group of Southern members of Con- 
gress, of whom I was one, with an effect I can never forget : " Shall your 
children be aliens to ray children — shall my children be aliens to your children ?" 
And now whilst Fusionists are '^ ding-donging" us about aliens and foreign in- 
fluence, I ask, in the language of Scripture : " Who is our brother ?" Shall 
Ohio be alien and enemy to Virginia? — shall Virginia be alien and enemy to 
Ohio ? — Should Ohio be thus a land of refuge from her mother State ? — Was 
it for this that the North West 'was ceded ? — that Ohio was made perpetually 
free by Virginia? Bitter, bitter reflections for a Virginia sCjn, proud of what 
his mother State has done for liberty and union ! I looked up and down the 
Ohio and Kanawha river valleys, and saw the richest soil and minerals — the 
most beautiful lands I have ever known God's sun to shine upon, or heaven's 
dews to water; lands more valuable for slave lahor than any others to be found 
in our limits. And yet no slave can safely be carried there to labor. And 
what the State of Ohio is to the frontier tier of counties on those rivers, they 
soon must become to the counties behind them in the interior of Virginia, be- 
cause no tie, no interest, no association of slavery can exist there. Thus, like 
the cancer, " Freesoil and Fusion" are eating into our very vitals. Thus are 
we constricted in our rights of property, in our peace and personal safety ! 
With this example, can you wonder that the State of jMissouri should be deeply 
excited and interested by the attempt of associated wealth and influence — per- 
haps foreign influence in part — to constrict her border in like manner by a cor- 
don of *' Fusion and Freesoil ?" Tell me, gentlemen, would any foreign power 
be allowed to insult and endanger the whole nation as the slave-holding States 
and their citizens are outraged in every offensive form by the Fusionists of the 
North ? Tell me not they are weak and harmless when they can send so many 
Senators and Representatives to Congress — when they can form the most formi- 
dable political parties — so long as they can seize and hold such States as the 
venerable mother State of Hancock and desecrate Faneuil Hall — so long as they 
can carry Ohio — so long as they can distract and divide and dwarf in the Union 
the very Empire State of New York I What, then, is to be done? The 
"envy, tiatred, malice and all uncharitableness" which this engenders cannot 
continue to smoulder much longer without bursting out into a general and de- 
vouring flame. The Kansas-Nebraska bill repealed the odious mark whence ma- 



445 

lice and mischief hurled incendiary torches across the border line. It removed 
a bcnrt-buriiiiig statute of sectionalism and attempted to restore peace under 
the regis of the Constitution. But the cry is now : " Kepeal of the Kausas- 
Nebralka bill and restoration of the Missouri Compromise !" This raises the 
issue : " Shall the Constitution reign as it did reign from the year 1789 to the 
years 1819-20 ?" With head and heart, might and soul, I unite with you for 
the reign of the Constitution over all compromises ! No higher, no lower law 
than the Constitution. 

Are the Fusionists, indeed, fatally bent on dissolution of the Union, or a 
civil, sectional war ? I tell you solemnly, that depends upon the strength, 
nerve, virtue and Avisdoni of the sound, conscientious, conservative patriots in 
the North. If you can come to the aid of the Constitution, at this crisis, big 
•with the fate of the Union, it may be saved. God Almighty grant it! The 
Union, I say to you, as I have said to the South, as I have said first and said 
last and delight to repeat — the Union is one of the most precious rights of the 
States. I never meant thereby to express the sentiment implied by the plat- 
form of the Pandemoniums at Philadelphia — that, ^mr se, it is the most pre- 
cious of rights, and must be preserved at every sacrifice. I never uttered 
such error as that 5 but I do say that the Union is the sacred palladium of our 
highest and holiest rights. It is, if you please, not of itself liberty, it is not 
equality, it is not sovereignty, it is not independence — it is not especially, the 
end of our government, but it is the means by which all the ends we ought to aim 
at are secured, and it is the means which Washington relied on as indispensa- 
ble to our existence as a people. It is the " E Pluribus Uuum" by which one 
is made thirty-one in strength, by which Virginia's sovereignty is fortified thir- 
ty-fold. Measured by what it is capable of attaining, by what it binds and 
holds fast, by what it has done and may do yet for this people and all men, it is 
inestimable. It achieved the American Pievolution, the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, the Constitution, settlement of the public lands, the land system, the 
peace policy, the second war for "free trade and sailor's rights," the principles 
of neutral rights, the long line of measures for development and progress of the 
human species, the acquisitions from Mexico, and is the bulwark of freedom 
and the hope of the oppressed throughout the world. It does not consist in 
the mere confederacy or joining of States. It consists in the Constitution, in 
the love and affection and brotherhood of our people throughout the country. 
If these links be broken it is dissolved. If broken and it binds at all, it will 
bind as a chain and it will gall as a chain, and it will cease to bind when fetters 
find foes who will not be bound by them. I for one had rather see the conti- 
nent shaken by earthquakes than to see the Union of these States dissolved, 
but it is simply the means of innumerable and inestimable ends of good; and if 
it ceases to subserve them, to secure liberty, equality, sovereignty, indepen- 
dence, peace, power, and pre-eminence among the nations of the earth, let it 
meet its fate ! Why make a sacrifice to save it? We will not count its cost — 
no mere material interest could weigh it down in the scales; but it is with the 
political union of the States as it is with the matrimonial union of persons; the 
oath of the altar, love, truth, constancy, fidelity require devotion, devotion to 
the last extremity — to bear and forbear — to make any and every honorable 
sacrifice — to count mere interest nothing; but if honor be touched, then on 
the instant, to dissolve the bands which bind to infamy, though it break the 
bands which bind to life ! And, I ask, will not the slave States be dishonored if 
they allow themselves to be provincializid by being excluded from equality in 
the'Union ! The Fusionists intend that they shall be so dishonored. Their intent 
shall never be executed ! We will cling to the Constitution, and when that is 
assailed, we will defend it with all the means which God and nature have put 
into our hands ; and when these fail, the Union, the eagle, the flag, will be but 
emblems of a past Republic, destroyed by a weakness and wickedness unparal- 



446 

lelcd in the folly and crime of mankind ! We demand nothing else but good 
faith in keeping the covenants of the Constitution. We demand not that any 
other people should be slaveholders. We will certainly not force a slave upon 
their service. But we do demand to be " let alone" — to be left undistured in 
our rights, and unmolested to enjoy the property protected by our laws. If 
we are not allowed to be and remain at peace, we must prepare for war. The 
hypocrites and knaves who are trading on the pious attachment of our people to 
the Union will find, when it is too late, that slaveholders can be driven to self- 
defence, and that they can trust — but I forbear ! We will unite to prevent 
horrors which it is painful to imagine in the worst, even, of contingencies to 
come. 

As to the secret " Americans" — the Know Nothings — day has broke upon 
them. And it is amusing to sec Sam's bats and owls of midnight, flitting and 
flapping, blind, about in the sunlight. They are seeking sorrily to skulk from 
light and sight — here some flap back to poor, deserted Whiggery, and there 
some escape to the " Republican" fusion. The day has dissolved the charm. 
The true bird of America^ Jove's own eagle, is on a wing that never tires, in 
the lambent light of the mid-heavens. Uncle Sam has roused himself and 
shaken off the slumber and stupor of the night dreams, and is at his active 
work in broad day. 

The devil baitv:d the hooks of some preachers with the politics of the Pope's 
big toe ; and the hooks of some politicians with the unco-righteousness of a 
knavish priestcraft, and set them bobbing together for the souls of dupes, for 
the corruption of the Church, and for the destruction of the State. No heat 
but one could have ever welded such a fusion. In the Shades they were taught 
their parts by the gloom light of the Dark Lantern ! But — 

" The sua is in the heavens, and life on earth !" 

Day has caught them in their incantations, and light is dispelling their mystcj. 
ries. The next you will see of Sam, he will be on his knees praying againsj. 
slavery and John Barleycorn. He has dropped Pope Pius Nouus, and has jus 
discovered, after all he has said about his Holiness' supremacy, that every na- 
turalized Catholic takes an oath expressly to renounce all allegiance to any and 
every prince, power, potentate, king, sovereign or state, and particularly to the 
prince, power, potentate, king, sovereign or state, of which he was before a 
subject. And he begins to admit that if an extra-judicial oath may bind a 
Know-Nothing to passive obedience and non-resistance to an unseen, intangible, 
irresponsible, secret oligarchy, that perchance, we may rely on the judicial 
oaths of naturalized citizens to renounce allegiance to all supremacy whatever 
except the sovereignty of the United States of North America. 

I give you the right hand of fellowship in opposition to the sumptuary laws 
which have of late years disgraced the codes of some of our States. Why, 
some Legislatures seem to have lost the horn-books of personal liberty ! They 
are for free soil and free negroes, but war upon the liberties of free white men ! 
They seem to have never known that there were such things, first invented in 
North America, as bills of rights, defining thoso which are inalienable and fix- 
ing the limits of legislation ! Where was the principle of Liquor laws to stop? 
No where short of invading every inalienable right of individual man. If 
municipal law cannot touch vested rights, much less can it invade the natural 
rif>-hts of the individual person. In such a dominion as that of England, they 
may hardly dare to confine the rights of the person to "air, to light and to 
flowino- water," at this day ; but here there never was a moment, since colonial 
times, when ttie rights of persons were not infinitely extended beyond these 
out of the roach of legislation. Oh ! but they say that such laws are sanitary, 
not sumptuary. And who made them Hospitalers of Hygeia, health nurses for 
the people ? Health is about as private a possession, about as ^^tntus et in cute," 



447 

personal as any man can be endowed with. Who created a government to 
turn Quack and proscribe ph3'sic ? " Physic to the dogs !" There are other 
things which destroy health besides alcohol. Eating as well as drinking, glut- 
tony as well as drunkenness hurts health. Will any one say that legislation 
may take charge of my table, and my diet and appetite, and say what I shall 
eat ? If they may prohibit a man from buying and selling whiskey, may they 
not prohibit his planting and sowing on his owq fee-simple soil, of his bayinf 
and selling the corn and rye from which the whiskey is distilled ? Again, 
French corsets have hurt more the health of whole generations, have crippled 
for their own lives and for their posterity too, more women and children than 
ever John Barleycorn slew of men 1 Shall a Hiss committee be allowed by law 
to inspect Madame's and Miss's chambers, and see whether whalebone and hard 
cord encompass ladies' waists too tight'/ The idea would be ridiculous, if it 
was not so insutferably tyrannous. You cannot legislate men to morality; you 
must educate them to liberty and virtue. Manners and morals must betJ-in at 
the mother's knee ; must be trained in the schools, and home and domestic 
teaching must give to the country pupils fit for the schools, and the schools 
must give to the country a people who will require no such despotic laws. They 
don't suit a people fit to be free; they corrupt and demoralize a people already 
fit to be slaves. The last source I would appeal to, for temperance in eating 
and drinking, is a Legislature, Federal or State. ! ye Metropolitan high 
livers ! what tales Champagne and London Dock, and canvas backs, and terra- 
pins, and oysters could tell upon your example of abstemiousness and self-de- 
nial ! How your temperance tells upon your livers ! and your legislation, too, 
at times I The truth is, all these "isms" come from the same nidus of the 
same cocatris. They come from the Scribes and Pharisees, who would take 
care of others' consciences ; they are inventions of ambitious priestcraft — or 
men who have a little religion to help their secular affairs, and who are a little 
worldly to help their religious affairs — of " preachers of Christian politics," 
who are snbtlely aspiring to civil, secular and political power — of men who don't 
"render unto Ctesar the things which are Cresar's," nor " unto God the thincs 
which are God's" — of hypocrites who would superserviceably cut off au ear for 
their Master with the sword, without his orders and against his law, and who 
would deny Him thrice before the cock crew once. And these are aided by 
cowardly and knavish politicians, who either fear or fawn upon their secret and 
sinister influences. We have only to drive out all such from the temple, as the 
dove-sellers were driven out by the Master whose " pure and undefiled reliwioa 
before God and the Father is, to visit the widow and the fatherless, and to keep 
one's self unspotted from the world I" 

Finally, gentlemen, according with you, as I do, in the leading principles of 
your platform, I cordially accept your invitation to unite with you in enfraftinf 
them upon the policy of the country. And I especially concur with you in the 
.sentinient that it is upon principle alone we ought to unite; and that all coali- 
tions between those who essentially differ on cardinal points, are unprincipled 
and demoralizing. And here I might pause ; but, long as this letter is, I have 
a word more to say. I hope I have answered your kind compliment in its own 
spirit, without enquiring whether your have any alias — any other name under 
Heaven by which you are known among men than that of National Democrats. 
I have purposely omitted to do so. 

Like yourselves, another body of Democrats of New York, lately, approached 
me fairly and openly, and I responded gratefully to them as I do to you. I 
was soon upbraided with having given " aid and comfort" to a certain party 
called " Softs." Now, some one may say that I have likewise given in adhe- 
sion to the Hards of New York. Well, all I can say for myself is, that T don't 
mean to know any Hard or Soft names for my friends who will unite with me 
in " the mission of the Democracy to proclaim and maintain the great doctrine 



448 

of civil and religious liberty, and to uphold and enforce tbe constitution in its 
sublime principle? of justice and equality." 

You iuu:it not wonder that your Democratic friends in Virginia are often con- 
fused by names and things in New York. We wish to see a united Democracy 
there on the old grounds of Jefferson and Jackson. We hear of Hard, and 
Soft, and Half Shells, and the ideas we form of them can be best illustrated by 
a subject of natural history. We have iu our waters gentlemen, a crustaceous 
animal called a crab — a sea fish, with fins and claws at both ends, and it can 
run either end foremost. Poke at him this way and he runs that — that way 
and he runs this ! He is remarkable, gentlemen, for his transformations. At 
one time catch him and crack his claw and his shell is hard, very hard, hard 
enou<Th for barnacles to grow upon his back, and it will not separate or be de- 
tache^i from the inner cuticle. In that state he is the Hard Crab proper. At 
another time, catch him and crack his claw— when he is hard, be sure to crack 
his claw, gentlemen, and you will find that, though his outer shell is still very 
hard, yet it will separate and can be detached from the inner cuticle or film over 
the muscles. He is then called the " Peeler," his shell will peal off from, 
without breaking, the inner shell. Later, catch him and you need not crack 
bis claw to see what he is, for his outer shell is then opening at every suture, 
and the crab is swelling out of its Hard and taking upon itself its Soft shell. 
In that state he is called a " Buster," bursting his shell. And as " Peeler" 
or " Buster" he is very fat, and a bait fit to catch tlie very " monarchs of the 
deep" with ! Later still, he has slipped out of his hard shell, by a sort of pe- 
ristaltic motion, and left it along the strand, and has become wholly a soft crab. 
In that state he is good bait too, and is preyed upon by hard crabs and other 
fishes, and he is inert and can hardly crawl out of harm's way. Then, again, 
this same crab, gentlemen, begins to harden from soft to hard again, as he had 
before softened from hard to soft. Found in this, his second intermediate state, 
he has become poor but more active, is not so good for bait, and he is called a 
" Buckram," for that ho is so like the fabric of that name, and his shell is then 
flexible like vellum. So that you see we have an idea of some Hards who are 
<' Peelers," tending to Soft, and of some Softs who are " Bu';krams," tending 
to Hards. And ti'iere is such a Hardenina: to Soft, and such a Softening to 
Hard, that we cannot distinguish the politicians of New York as we do crabs — 
sometimes by sight, sometimes by touch, and sometimes by cracking their claws. 
But this I do say, that I think I can see you are Democrats ; that I can distin- 
guish you, unmistakably, by the platform of principle you have put forth, and 
I am anxious and ready to stand by and with and fur any portion of the De- 
mocracy of New York who will unite on the platform of civil and religious lib- 
erty, as defined by the constitution and bills of rights of our State and Federal 
governments, and as defended by our State sovereignties and our Federal Union. 
I cannot and will not unite with any Wilmot Proviso, with any dark lantern, 
or with any sumptuary law party ! 

And how is it that New York is divided against herself in this great cause, 
" which, down the tide of time, unborn ages yet will honor and admire ?" She, 
the Empire State — she, the centre of commerce — she, the city set upon a hill, 
to waste her strength, to expend her substance, to dwarf her influence, to lower 
her dignity, to eclipse the light of her own fame and glory by distracting divi- 
sions, by disastrous discord, \y confusion of her friends and fusion of her foes ! 
Rally and rescue ! Shall the'spoils separate us from each other and from our 
country ? No ! nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to 
come. We will strike together, and strike home for our God, our Country and 
our Constitution ! 

Yours, in the faith, 

HENRY A. WISE. 

To Alexr C. Morton, Chairman, &c. &c. 



449 

THE KNOW NOTHING PHILADELPHIA PLATFOM. 

NOTES AND COMMENTS. 

On the 14th June, 1855, an Astrologer announced in the papers that there 
was to be a grand conjunction of the sun, moon, and the phinet Saturn, which 
portended, among other things, fires, diseases, accidents, and loss of reputation 
to the vulgar. This dire conjunction brought forth, also, the platform of the 
Know Nothing Convention. Who, after this, shall doubt the influence of the 
stars ! Saturn is of course the planet that presides over the destinies of Sam, 
their initials being the same. But Saturn alone could do nothing; he was com- 
pelled to call in the assistance of the sun and moon, and then, with " a lon<» 
pull, a strong pull, and a pull altogether," Sam was delivered of a Platform. 
But the operation broke him in two : 

Parturient montes ; nascitur ridiculus mus. 

From all parts of the country came the picked men of the party. There 
was assembled the very flower of Know Nothingism, the quintessence, the adar 
gul of that inimitable Order. The convention was the mirror of Sambodum. 
But this was not enough : the cream of this incon)parable galaxy was skimmed 
olF and set apart to elaborate a scheme of principles wherewith to butter the 
brains of the people. And now, with the aid of the sun, moon and Saturn, to 
say nothing of his rings and his moons, liere it is. 

On looking it over, however, the first impression that is felt, is a doubt as to 
its authenticity. In all fairness, the opinion of the public gave the Know 
Nothings credit for that common degree of ability that is found in the ordinary 
proceedings of the most unpretending meetings of citizens, everywhere in -our 
country. There are some very respectable truisms, trite and hackneyed by fre- 
quent repetition, indeed, in the platform. But they are out of place, vaguely 
expressed, and utterly insignificant where they stand. They do not save the 
rest of the document , they infuse no life into the inert pile. Yet, since there 
is every appearance of its official character, and meetings of Know Nothings 
have endorsed it, let us regard it as authentic. 

I. The first Article is decidedly misplaced in a declaration of political princi- 
ples. Any one in the least imbued with religious feeling, must be shocked to 
see the Deity called down, as it were, to preside over a deliberation such as this 
Know Nothing Convention n)ust have presented. For, in reading this article, 
the mind recalls a certain other platform of more ancient date and higher sanc- 
tion, having as a clause of its first article : "Thou shalt not take the name of 
the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketb 
his name in vain." What right had the Convention to disregard the common- 
est decencies which even the irreligious observe before the sober eye of the 
public ? Besides, did it not occur to any one of that assembly that it ill be- 
came the state of mortality to assume that tone of patronizing superiority to- 
wards the Supreme I^eing, which would be offensive and impertinent, toward* 
a mere man whose dignity of character, age or station entitled him to particu«- 
lar respect ? 

But what, in the name of all the darkness of Egypt, is to be understood by 
" every step by which we have advanced to the character of an independent 
nation ? " or, again, by " some token of providential atjency." It is scarcely 
possible even to speak of this first article without the appearance of profane- 
ness. But surely the observation may be made that there would have been, at 
least, some meaning in a " token of providential favor." There is no Know 
Nothing but must have had an opportunity of hearing that not only our career 
29 



450 

as a nation is conducted by providential agency, "but the very least occurrence 
that takes place is the result of that agency. Not a sparrow can fall to the 
ground without it. 

Whatever reason can be supposed to have led to this " acknowledgment," by 
that same reason the doctrine of the Trinity, the immortality of the soul, and 
a state of future reward and punishment, or eternal responsibility, ought to have 
been inserted in the Platform. And their non-appearance is, in view of the 
first article, a fair and irresistible presumption that the Know Nothing leaders 
knew they could not obtain a concurrence of the majority of the body to these 
points ; or, that they themselves were not willing to profess them. 

II. The second Article of their creed is composed of as much froth and fus- 
tian, and as many long words of three, four and five syllables, about patriotism, 
the revolution, &c., &c., as could be packed into the space assigned. " Senti- 
aients of profoundly intense American feeling ! " (Quotha !) This is piling 
up the agony to some purpose : not content with a feeling, or the sentiment of 
a feelino-^ they must have a profoundly intense feeling to have a sentiment of, to 
be put under development and cultivation, like a tender exotic under a glass 
bell, to be put into the second article of the Platform— and no where else. For 
out of this article there is mighty little account made of " emulation and yen- 
eration," or " patriotism and heroism," or " institutions and constitutions." 
Their passionate attachment is to the emoluments of the offices they are longing 
for, and most of them would and will, in time to come, be seen kicking the 
National Platform from Dan to Beersheba, if a five, three or two thousand dol- 
lar office is danced before their eyes, as no small portion of them are even now 
kicking and trampling upon the Constitution and laws of the Uuited States. 

IIL'^The third Article is, *< The maintenance of the Union of these United 
States." Well done 1 Is it really possible that Sam, in his High-mightiness 
will condescend to let us preserve the Union ? We ought to be thankful. But 
nottoo fast — there is a qualification : " as the paramount political good." This 
spoils all. The beginning was excellent and complete in itself. Sam was not 
willing', however, to leave us the Union simply and unconditionally. The ex- 
istence of the clique of political agitators, who arc endeavoring to create a new 
party, alone is a danger to our Uuion. The prominence they assign to this 
question of the maintenance of the Union, is most inauspicious. And their 
evident determination to agitate the subject, is an imminent peril to that Union, 
which it behooves every good citizen of the republic to watch with the utmost 
solicitude. Fortunately, the party has at every turn added something to the 
public indignation, that its first rumored existence created. And this attitude 
will only serve to increase it. Their attack is very insidious ; for thus they 
proceed. The Union, they say, is in danger, it must be maintained, we must 
maintain it. Then, as it becomes necessary to make the people believe all this, 
they magnify whatever they can force into an opposition to the Union, or what- 
ever they can bring forward as a source of disunion, thereby creating and ex- 
tending the very peril they pretend to put down. Sly Sam, he is quite a Nic 
Macchiavelli on a small scale. It was in this manner the Convention at Phila- 
delphia gave that importance to the fanatics of the North "which otherwise they 
could not have attained. It enabled them to assume the appearance of a digni- 
fied minority retiring undismayed, from the injustice of force and numbers. 
By such tricks the Know Nothings would justify all this outcry about Union. 
They are endeavoring to get up something like an opposition to it that they may 
appear to have something to battle with on that ground. 

IV. More fine speeches. Obedience to the Constitution ! " A habit of re- 
verential obedience to the laws !" When the Know Nothings recognise that it 
is necessary for them solemnly to assure the people that they will obey the Con- 
stitution and laws, it is a case for the merry to laugh at, and the grave to pity. 
But mark the difference ! There is no devotion or loyalty to the Constitution 



451 

expressed here ; nothing but a cold obedience, very much as M'hen men obey 
and submit to laws that condemn them. But they have a tender and sacred re- 
gard for certain acts of statesmanship, &c. What is meant by this? What- 
ever particular act may be referred to, it is plain the Know Nothings set above 
the laws, the compact of Union, and the Constitution in their political devo- 
tions, certain acts of statesmanship, as a fixed and settled national policy. There 
is a lurking peril here, skillfully concealed, it is true, and which, to develope, 
would require more space than we can give to the whole platform. 

V. Here they show what they mean by reverence for the laws. They only 
require that the laws be radically revised. Not so bad for Sum ! When he is 
about to declare himself in opposition to anything, he first displays any amount 
of respect and veneration for it. 

• VI. In Article sixth, the Knovv Nothings ^continue to show their regard for 
the laws by repealing, modifying, &c., another whole class of them. Most ex- 
cellent Sam ! While the people are growing more jealous of Federal tenden- 
cies, here is a Convention sending out its decrees to the State Legislatures. 

Those who framed our Constitution never intended that a body called the Na- 
tional Council, should assume the part of dictator, pronounce upon the details 
of legislative enactments in the States; the action of Congress; the regulation 
of the Executive ; the Constitution and the Union ; a national system of educa- 
tion ; the limitation of the religious rights or opinions of the people; and set 
forth a peculiar sectarian definition of the Suitrcme Being. It is fortunate that 
this body, insignificant in itself, should have been rendered still more so, by a 
violent disruption and secession ; fortunate that its members are such political 
ciphers that their ukase possesses no shade of authority. 

Our American form of government recognizes no such thing as a National 
Council. Let the Know Nothings disguise themselves as they M'ill, they never 
hit upon the true American feeling, tone, look and bearing. Least of all can 
they do so by reviving the old Whig attempts to " palsy the will of the constitu- 
ent," such as is this of a National Council. 

VII. If the reader has any inclination to risibility, it will be almost impossi- 
ble to read the 7th Article without a smile or even a genuine, frank, hearty 
laugh. This article is specially adapted to assist digestion. " Corrupt means 
of forcing upon people political creeds I" Was ever a creed forced upon people 
before in this land with such violence as Know Nothingism ? Some curious 
experiments were once made by a naturalist in forcing turkies to swallow iron 
balls covered with strong and sharp prickles. The operations of Sam are very 
similar to those experiments; and his platform to those iron balls. When the 
turkies were killed, it was found that the action of their internal organs had 
completely worn down the iron spikes, so that no sign of them remained. Most 
of the principles of this platform appear to be, in the same way, worn down by 
the individual moral gizzards of those who assume to belong to that party. Sam 
further professes admiration for the maxim that '' Office should seek the man, 
and not man the office." Is not this an exquisitely touching specimen of Ar- 
cadian simplicity and verdant innocence ? What high esteem Sam has shown 
for this sentiment and the will of the people in the case of Franklin Pierce and 
Henry A. Wise ! 

VIII. If in the 8th Article the National Council had commenced by .say- 
ing, " Blue is yellow : to conclude, therefore, blue is red," they would have 
been quite as logical as they are in what they do say. But if Sam will be ab- 
surd, he is unfortunate in always being so when on the subject of religion. He 
may rest assured that Americans intend to govern America without requiring 
his permission. And the proof is, that no share of administration will be en- 
trusted to the Grand Mogul or his adherents^ for we Americans have a natural 
antipathy for despotism. 



452 

IX. Thia is one of the prickles which Know Nothing gizzards will soonest 
wear down. 

X. Here is the first and only principle in the platform that properly belongs 
to an exposition of political views by a party. It is, moreover, expressed in a 
sensible, straightforward manner. It is fairly opening a plain issue for public 
opinion, which the people will settle to their satisfaction. Sam would do well 
to press this matter vigorously. 

X[. The first two lines here are excellent in themselves. But the principle 
they contain is not altogether proper for a party platform. However, the thing 
is go good in itself, that this would matter little. But Sam, with his usual pro- 
pensity for spoiling his own work when not already bad, immediately proceeds 
to overlay it with a mass of verbiage that completely alters its first significance. 
The question of the Bible in schools is, in particular, misplaced in a platform of 
party principles. 

But on behalf of the good people of these United States, one request is to 
be made of the Know Nothings. Let them think, act and speak as they will ; 
let them rage on to their satisfaction about Catholic and Foreigner ; but^ let 
them not meddle with education. Their party is going to pieces before it is 
fairly built up, but a threat like this would cut short the slender chances of 
popularity they have remaining. A rush of fanatics from Boston and New 
York would be let loose to propagate Abolitionism, Bloomerism, Fourierism, 
and every pestilent device of the denizens of those menageries of monomaniacs, 
throughout all our borders. The newspaper is the whole, or almost the whole 
education of numbers; and a noble system of morals, religion, politics, histo- 
rical, philosophical and social science, and taste in literature and art, might be 
diffused by a well-conducted press. The newspaper is a school, without seeming 
so, which may disseminate throughout the community a spirit of high refine- 
ment and cultivation, maintaining that due balance between diflerent important 
subjects which it is so diificult to adjust; rendering rightful honor to rare ex- 
amples of morality and piety, and so spreading the emulation of these quali- 
ties ; keeping alive among the people a correct understanding of the political 
principles upon which our constitution, laws and social characteristics are foun- 
ded, in which lie the sources of our independence and happiness as men and as 
a nation ; and refiectiug an image of the progress of the useful acd finer arts 
which belong to true civilization and enlightenment. The career of Benjamin 
Franklin, which commenced with a newspaper, to end with the Declaration of 
Independence, may be referred to here as an illustration of this subject. But 
rake up New England, New York and Pennsylvania— rake up the Know No- 
thing press everywhere, and it will appear what Sam is likely to do in this 
matter, to say nothing of the stupendous system of deception he has saved from 
the ruins of the Whig party. 

XII. Another pretended defence of the Union. ' Sam, however, has so little 
of our national character in bis composition, that he is incapable of barely un- 
derstanding what union means. His essential instincts are against union. 
From the first it was necessary to bind his adherents by oath to keep them 
united together, and to veil their proceedings in secrecy to hide their dissen- 
sions. No sooner do the Know Nothings attempt to come out as a national 
party, than they divide in two. Is not this a fine sample of union ? ^ They 
have sown dissension between J^otestant and Catholic. ]s this their idea of 
tinion ? They have arrayed native against foreigner, parent against son. Is 
this union? They have even formed a plan of dividing American from Ameri- 
can by secret organization. They have built a wall between North and South, 
where there was only a narrow ditch before. They have introduced a quarrel 
between the people and the executive, where before, it was understood and 
agreed, that the executive was the people, that it stood for and represented them. 
They have carried the harsh and bitter spirit of division into the matter of edu- 



453 

cation. But to pursue tbe enumeration no farther, we ask again, are not these 
fine samples of Sam's conception of union i* 

Are the Know Nothings entitled to prate about maintaining the Union ? As 
well might a man born blind attempt to paint the rainbow, the finest natural 
emblem of the covenant of union, as Sam to persuade the people to entrust this 
Union of sovereign States to his care. 

Sum makes the following astounding announcement : " There can be no dis- 
honour in submitting to the laws". Now this looks so like a very comnjonplace 
truisai, every citizen should respect the laws, that at first it appears to be mere 
filling up. But wishing to do Sam justice, a closer examination leads to the 
question : why did be give it this peculiar form of expression ? Then, looking 
to see what laws in particular are referred to, it appears that existing laws on 
the subject of slavery are meant. This lets in a flash of light. And now we 
fully conceive this brilliant sentiment: " There can be no dishonor in s«6??i/f- 
thuj to the laws" — oh, no ; the dishonor lies upon the head of those who made 
the laws. This is what Sam intends by his, at first, unaccountable mention of 
dishonor. 

And now, how is Sam going to suhmit to these laws ? His platform. Arti- 
cles IV., v., VI., the reader has not forgotten, shows that his way of submit- 
ting to the laws is to set about a " radical and essential" " revision," " modifi- 
cation" and " repeal" of the laws. A word to the wise. 

There is little doubt that in the National Council the words Union, Constitu- 
tion, and some others were incessantly repeated, but still less that the word by 
far most frequently uttered, and most vehemently by every fragment of that 
disunited body, was Treason. If every part pronounced this of the rest, is it 
too much to make a unanimous vote of the council of it, to be applied to the 
whole body ? 

XIII. Is a very pretty sentiment. 

XIV. Here Sam fulfils a prediction we made long ago. His self importance 
made him altogether too talkative to refrain from letting out his secret on the 
least occasion. He now gives up the attempt. And, like Samson of old, the 
Delil:\h of hope having fondled the mystery out of him, will cut otf his locks ; 
and he will lose the only source of his strength. No more tying together of 
foxes by tbe tail; no more slaughters with the jawbone of an ass ! Alas, poor 
Sammy ! 



From the Union. 

FOREIGN-BORN CITIZENS IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 

The writer of this communication is a native citizen of the United States, 
and his ancestors, for not less than six generations, were also natives of this 
country. This circumstance will tend to show that he can have no natural bias 
or prejudice in favor of foreigners. In common with other native citizens, be 
has sometimes heard with regret of newly-arrived foreigners interfering with or 
assuming an undue importance in our elections, and lacking that modest defer- 
ence to intelligent native-born citizens that common sense urges as due to them, 
and which is also due, to a certain extent, to the intelligent foreign-born citizens 
of long residence among us. But is it prudent or just for this cause to join in 
a general and indiscriminate crusade against all foreigners ? As regards the 
prudence of such a course, are we not suffering now, in the high prices of all 
kinds of edible products, for tha want of thousands of brawny arms to subdue 
our almost countless acres of uncultivated land ? And, as regards its justice, 
are we not morally bound to look to our history, and to reflect that this is a 



454 

coinitry which, with the exception of a few Indian tribes, is made up of emi- 
gration — of Penn and his peaceful colonists, to Pennsylvania; of the Pilgrim 
i^'atbors, driven to Plymouth Rock ; of Calvert and his followers, seeking reli- 
gious liberty on the shores of Maryland ; of the Huguenots, taking refuge in 
South Carolina; and of innumerable companies of colonists ever since, fleeing 
from religious and political persecutions, and finding an asylum in this hitherto 
happy country ? In the language of Hezekiah Niles' patriotic song — 

" 'Tis my now native land, happy land of the free ; , . 

'Tis the last hope of all men — of sweet liberty !" 

Yes ! the liberty of conscience, the liberty of speech, and the liberty of parti- 
cipating in " the pursuit of happiness/' so long as there is no trenching on the 
rights of a neighbor. 

But I do not propose to enter into an argument on the propriety of a general 
disfranchisement of foreigners — a subject which has already been so ably ar- 
gued as to leave those who favored extreme disqualification with hardly any 
ground to stand upon — but simply to show how large a debt we had contracted 
towards persons of foreign birth for the liberty we now enjoy — liberties achieved 
by those gallant spirits, mostly native, but many of them foreign, who in our 
revolutionary war battled for American independence, and the rights of civil 
and religious freedom. 

I have no immediate means of determining what number of valiant men born 
out of the country drew the sword and shouldered the musket in our revolution- 
ary contest ; but no man can read any history of that important period of our 
national existence without being satisfied that there were thousands so engaged. 
We have, however, abundant evidence to show that many of those persons ren- 
dered themselves illustrious by their heroic deeds, and that the record of " the 
times that tried men's souls" has woven for them an imperishable chaplet. I 
will cite the names of a few : 

Commodore John Barry, born in the county of Wexford, Ireland, command- 
ed the ship Black Prince, that was converted into a vessel of war, and subse- 
quently he was appointed by Congress to command the brig Lexington, of 16 
guns; then the ilaleigh, of 32 guns; then the frigates Alliance and the United 
States ; and in a number of actions shed lustre on the young flag of America. 

Judge Greorge Bryan, born in Dublin, Ireland. His father having given him 
a sufficiency to establish him in mercantile business, at the age of 21 he em- 
barked for Philadelphia, where he remained until his death. He was a delegate 
to Congress in 1775, in which he became known for his advocacy of petitions 
and remonstrances against the arbitrary measures of Great Britain. Soon after 
the Declaration of Independence he was elected Lieutenant Governor of Penn- 
sylvania, and afterwards Governor of that State. Subsequently he was a mem- 
ber of the Legislature, and then Judge of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania — 
such was then the gratitude of the American people for the services of foreign- 
born citizens. 

Captain James Chrystie, born in Edinburg, Scotland, in 1777 was promoted 
to the command of a company, which he held until the end of the war. On 
the discovery of Arnold's plot at West Point, Gen. Washington selected Cap- 
tain Chrystie for an important service, and said to him : " Captain Chrystie, you 
are to receive no written orders from me. The business is that you proceed with 
all possible expedition to West Point, and examine particularly the state of that 
garrison in every respect; and to visit all the intermediate posts for the same 
purpose. Make this known to no one but the commanding officer at each post ; 
and you are to enjoin on them the secrecy of the grave; commit nothing to wri- 
ting." Here the General paused. " Has your excellency any further orders ?" 
enquired Captain Chrystie. " Yes," replied the General, " one, and a very se- 



455 

rlous one ; that is, Captain Chrystie, that on this occasion you are not to let me 
hear of your being taken prisoner. Do you understand me ?" " Perfectly well," 
replied Captain Cbrystie, " you shall not hear of that event." Captain Chrystie 
proceeded alone, and executed this commission in a satisfactory manner, and 
made such a report as set the mind of General Washington perfectly at ease. 

Charles Clinton, born in Ireland, (father of George Clinton, afterwards Vice- 
President of the United States,) died in 1773, in the 83d year of his age, con- 
juring his sons in his last moments to stand by the liberties of their country. 

Major Willian Croghan, born in Ireland, was engaged in the battles of 13ran- 
dywine, Gerniantown and Monmouth. He was the father of Col. George Cro- 
ghan, the gallant defender of Fort Sandusky in our second war with Great 
Britain. 

' Colonel William Richardson Davie, born in White Haven, England, com- 
manded a battalion of dragoons with much credit during the revolutionary war ; 
and subsequently rose to great eminence at the bar in North Carolina, and was 
sent as ambassador to France by the elder President Adams. ^ , 

Major General Horatio Gates, born in England, was called from his retire- 
ment in Virginia, and recommended to Congress by General Washington. His 
great services, especially at Saratoga, have made his name a household word. ^ 

Major William Gwinn, born in Ireland, joined the revolutionary army in 
1776, and served with credit. He died in Baltimore county in 1819, in the 
70th year of his age. 

Alexander Hamilton, born in the island of St. Croix, in the West Indies, 
was distinguished through the revolutionary war for his high qualifications in 
military science — especially at Yorktown — and was our first Secretary of the 
Treasury. 

General William Irvine, born in Ireland, joined the revolutionary army in 
1774 ; and was an active member of a public meeting recommending Congress 
to assemble, denouncing the Boston port bill, expressing a sympathy with the 
sufi'erers, and declaring their willingness and determination to make any sacri- 
fices necessary for the support of American rights. He was appointed a colonel 
of a regiment, in command of which he was captured in an attempt to surprise 
a vanguard of the British army. After his release he became the commanding 
General of the second Pennsylvania brigade. 

Andrew Irvine, a brother to the foregoing, was a lieutenant in the revolu- 
tionary war. 

Colonel (afterwards General) James Jackson, born in Devon, England, was 
distinguished for his military services in the South during the revolutionary 
war. He died in the city of Washington on the 19th of January, 1806, while 
attending to his duties as a Senator of the United States. 

Major John James, born in Ireland, was distinguished for his military ser- 
vices in the South. 

Commodore John Paul Jones, born in Galway county, Scotland. His match- 
less naval prowess and courage told with terrible efibct on the mother country. 

Major General Baron De Kalb, born in Germany, received eleven wounds in 
the battle of Camden. To a British officer, who condoled with him, he said : 
" i thank you for your generous sympathy, l3ut I die the death I always prayed 
for — the death of a soldier fighting for the rights of man." He survived but a 
few days. Congress resolved that a monument should be erected to his memory 
in the town of Annapolis, State of Maryland. 

Thaddeus Kosciusko, born in Poland — his fame classic in two hemispheres. 
General Hugh Mercer, born in Aberdeen, Scotland, distinguished himself iu 
the battles of Trenton and Princeton. 

Major General Pi,ichard Montgomery, born in Ireland, fell in the attack on 
Quebec, December 31, 1775, aged 38. In a debate in the British Parliament, 
the death of this gallant general was lamented in strains of the most pathetic 



456 

eloquence that ever were heard in the House of Commons. Three of the prin- 
cipal orators, Mr. Burke, Mr. Fox, and Colonel Barre, vied with each other in 
the panegyric of that hero. General Burgoyne, though he expressed a strong 
zeal against the American cause, in a very handsome manner did justice to his 
merits, and said that all his virtues were abundantly rewarded when they were 
thus " praised, wept and honored by the muse he loved." Lord North, the 
prime minister, censured the unqualified liberality of the praises bestowed on 
General Montgomery by the gentlemen of the opposition, because they were 
bestowed on a rebel; and said he could not join in lamenting his death as a 
public loss. He admitted that he was brave ; that he was able ; that he was 
humane ; that he was generous ; but still he was only a brave, able, humane 
and generous rebel ; and said that the verse of the tragedy of Cato might be 
applied to him : 

" Curse on his virtues, they've undone his country." 

Robert Morris, born in Liverpool, England, was the superintendent of our 
finances during the rovolutionary war, and his credit supplied the country when 
the military chest had been drained of its last dollar. 

Major General William Moultrie, born in England, was distinguished for his 
heroic services in the revolutionary war, and especially for his defence of the 
city of Charleston. He was afterwards Governor of South Carolina. 

Thomas Paine, born in P^ngland, was the author of " Common Sense," "The 
Crisis," " Rights of Man," &c. Whatever his faults, he rendered powerful 
aid by his pen to the revolutionary cause. 

Count Pulaski, born in Poland, was mortally wounded in defence of the city 
of Savannah, where Congress has erected a monument to his memory. 

Major General Frederick William Steuben, born in Prussia, was a volunteer 
in the action at Monmouth, and commanded in the trenches at Yorktown on 
the day which terminated our revolutionary struggle with Great Britain. 

Major General Gilbert Lafayette, born in France. In " Dunlap's Pennsyl- 
vania Packet," printed in Philadelphia, of August 19, 1777, I find, in a letter 
from an American in Paris to a gentleman in Pennsylvania, dated April 10, 
1777, the following announcement : 

" This letter will be put into your hands by the Marquis de Lafayette, of a 
noble and ancient family in France, connected by birth and marriage with the 
first in the kingdom, and in possession of an estate of upwards of fourteen thou- 
sand pounds sterling per annum, beloved and almost adored by bis numerous 
acquaintance ; but preferring glory to every enjoyment which these in the arms 
of a young and beautiful wife and young family, could give him, he courts dan- 
ger in defence of our cause, which is here universally celebrated as the cause of 
mankind." 

He came and lent us his powerful aid, shedding his blood in defence of our 
liberties. From Brandywine to Yorktown his name shines conspicuous in our 
annals. 

Fellow-citizens, in the Representatives' Hall of yonder capitol there are two 
portraits — one of Georoe ^\ asiiington, the Father of his Country, the other 
of Gilbert Lab^ayette, who crossed the ocean to strike for freedom. Will 
you, with sacrilegious hand and base ingratitude, tear down the latter from 
those walls in obedience to a senseless fanaticism against foreigners ? I trust 
not. F. J. 

. Washington, D. C, May 8, 1855. 



457 

V 

From the Richmond Enquirer. 

KNOW NOTHINGISM UxNVEILED. 

We comply with the request of patriotic Democrats in North Carolina and, 
to-day publish at length the Constitution of thfe " National Council of the 
United States of North America," and the State Council of North Carolina, 
with the Ritual, Degrees and all the other paraphernalia of the most mischie- 
vous and dangerous oligarchy that ev.er conspired against civil and religious 
liberty. The°election in the old North State is rapidly approaching, and our 
friends are making a gallant fight. They feel confident that the people of 
North Carolina cannot hesitate as to their duty, when they shall be enlightened 
as to the trickery and monstrous purposes of a Secret Order, whose inevitable 
tendency is to destroy all individual freedom of action, and to make Americans 
the blind and servile instruments of an irresponsible, Jesuitical, proscriptive 
and tyrannical oligarchy. In North Carolina the Democracy are waging un- 
compromising war upon Know Nothingism, exposing its dark movements and 
purposes, and appealing to the intelligence, honesty and patriotism of the 
people. By such a course the Democracy of Virginia laid " Sam" low — a 
simihtr result will be seen in North Carolina. All that the people want is light 
—and a flood of it is shed upon the subject by the following publication of of- 
ficial Know Nothing documents. They explain themselves, and require no_ 
comment : 

Constitution of the National Council of tie United States of North Ame- 
rica. 

•Article First. 

Tills organization shall be known by the name and title of THE NATION- 
AL COUNCIL OF THE UNITED STATES OF NORTH AMERICA, and 
its jurisdictitm and power shall extend to all the States, Districts and Territo- 
ries of the United States of North America. 

Article Second. 

The object of this organization shall be to protect every American citizen in 
the lesial and proper exercise of all his civil and religious rights and privileges ; 
to resist the insidious policy of the Church of Rome, and all other foreign in- 
fluence against our republican institutions in all lawful ways ; to place in all 
ofiices of^honor, trust, or profit, in the gift of the people, or by appointment, 
none but native born Protestant citizens, and to protect, preserve and uphold 
the union of these States and the Constitution of the same. 

Article Third. 

Sec. 1. — A person to become a member of any Subordinate Council must be 
twenty-one years of age ; he must believe in the existence of a Supreme Being 
as the Creator and Preserver of the Universe. He must be a native born citi- 
zen ; a Protestant, either born of Protestant parents, or reared under Protestant 
influence ; and not united in marrriage with a Roman Catholic ; jjrovided, ne- 
verfhrlcss, that in this last respect, the State, District or Territorial Councils 
shall be authorized to so construct their respective Constitutions as shall best 
promote the interests of the American cause in their several jurisdictions ; and 
provided, moreover, that no member who may have a Roman Catholic wife shall 



458 

be eligible to office in this Order ; and provided, furlJier, should any State, 
District or Territorial Council prefer the words " Roman Catholic" as a disqua- 
lification to membership, in place of "Protestant" as a qualification, they may 
so consider this Constitution and govern their action accordingly. 

Sec. 2. — There shall be an interval of three weeks between the conferring 
of the First and Second Degrees j and of three months between tbe conferring 
of the Second and Third Degrees — provided, that this restriction shall not ap- 
ply to those who may have received the Second Degree previous to the first day 
of December next ; and provided, further, that the Presidents of State, Dis- 
trict, and Territorial Councils may grant dispensations for initiating in all the 
Degrees, officers of new Councils. 

Sec. 3. — The National Council shall hold its Annual meetings on the first 
Tuesday in the month of June, at such place as may be designated by the Na- 
tional Council at the previous Annual meeting, and it may adjourn from time to 
time. Special meetings may be called by the President, on the written request 
of five delegations representing five State Councils ; p>rovided, that sixty day's 
notice shall be given to the State Councils previous to said meeting. 

Sec. 4. — The National Council shall be composed of seven delegates from 
each State, to be chosen by the State Councils ; and each District or Territory 
where a District or Territorial Council shall exist, shall be entitled to send two 
delegates, to be chosen from said Council — provided, that in the nomination of 
candidates for President and Vice President of the United States, each State 
shall be entitled to cast the same number of votes as they shall have members 
in both Houses of Congress. In all sessions of the National Council, thirty- 
two delegates, representing thirteen States, Territories or Districts, shall consti- 
tute a quorum for the transaction of business. 

Sec. 5. — The National Council shall be vested with the following powers and 
privileges : 

It shall be the head of the Organization for the United States of North 
America, and shall fix: and establish all signs, grips, passwords, and such other 
secret work, as may seem to it necessary. 

It shall have the power to decide all matters appertaining to National Poli- 
tics. 

It shall have the power to exact from the State Councils, quarterly or annual 
statements as to the number of members under their jurisdictions, and in rela- 
tion to all other matters necessary for its information. 

It shall have the power to form State, Territorial or District Councils, and to 
grant dispensations for the formation of such bodies, when five Subordinate 
Councils shall have been put in operation in any State, Territory, or District, 
and application made. 

It shall have the power to determine upon a mode of punishment in case of 
any dereliction of duty on the part of its members or officers. 

It shall have the power to adopt cabalistic characters for the purpose of 
writing or telegraphing. Said characters to be communicated to the Presidents 
of the State Councils, and by them to the Presidents of the Subordinate 
Councils. 

It shall have the power to adopt any and every measure it may deem neces- 
sary to secure the success of the Organization ; provided, that nothing shall be 
done by the said National Council in violation of the Constitution ; and pro- 
vided further, that in all political matters, its members may be instructed by 
the State Councils, and if so instructed, shall carry out such instructions of the 
State Councils which they represent until overruled by a majority of the Na- 
tional Council. 



459 

• Article Fourth. 

The President sliall always preside over the National Council when present, 
and in his absence the A'ice President shall preside, and in the absence of both 
the National Council shall appoint a President pro tempore.; and the presiding 
officers may at all times call a member to the chair, but such appointment shall 
not extend beyond one sitting of the National Council. 

Article Fifth. 

Sec. 1. — The officers of the National Council shall be a President, Vice 
President, Chaplain, Corresponding Secretary, Recording Secretary, Treasurer, 
and two Sentinels ; with such other officers as the National Council may see fit 
to appoint from time to time ; and the Secretaries and Sentinels may receive 
such compensation as the National Council shall determine. 

See. 2. — The duties of the several officers created by this Constitution shall 
be such as the work of this Organization prescribes. 

Article Sixth. 

gee. 1. — All officers provided for by this Constitution, except the Sentinels, 
shall be elected annually by ballot. The President may appoint Sentinels from 
time to time. 

Sec. 2. — A majority of all the votes cast shall be requisite to an election for 
an office. 

Sec. 3. — All officers and delegates of this Council, and of all State, District, 
Territorial and Subordinate Councils, must be invested with all the Degrees of 
this Order. 

Sec. 4. — All vacancies in the elective offices shall be filled by a vote of the 
National Council, and only for the unexpired term of the said vacancy. 

Article Seventh. 

Sec. 1. — The National Council shall entertain and decide all cases of appeal 
and it shall establish a form of appeal. 

Sec. 2. — The National Council shall levy a tax npon the State, District, or 
Territorial Councils, for the support of the National Council, to be paid in such 
manner and at such times as the National Council shall determine. 

Article Eighth. 

This National Council may alter and amend this Constitution at its regular 
Annual meeting in June next, by a vote of the majority of the whole number 
of the members present. (Cincinnati, Nov. 24, 1854.) 



^ RULES AND REGULATIONS. 

Rule one. — Each State, District or Territory, in which there may exist five 
or more Subordinate Councils working under dispensations from the National 
Council of the United States of North America, or under regular dispensations 
from some State, District or Territory, are duly empowered to establish them- 
selves into a State, District or Territorial Council, and when so established, to 
form for themselves Constitutions and By-Laws for their government, in pur- 
suance of, and in consonance with, the Constitution of the National Council of 



460 

the United States; provided, however, that all District, or Territorial Constitu- 
tions shall be subject to the approval of the National Council of the United 
States. (June, 1854.) 

Rule two. — All State, District or Territorial Councils, when established, shall 
have full power and authority to establish all Subordinate Councils within their 
respective limits; and the Constitutions and By-Laws of all such Subordinate 
Councils, must be approved by their respective State, District or Territorial 
Councils. (June, 1854.) 

Rule three. — All State, District or Territoral Councils, when established and 
until the formation of Constitutions, shall work under the Constitution of the 
National Council of the United States. (June, 1854.) 

Rule four. — In all cases where, for the convenience of the Organization, two 
State or Territorial Councils may be established, the two Councils together shall 
be entitled to but thirteen delegates* in the National Council of the United States 
— the proportioned number of delegates to depend on the number of members 
in the Organizations ; provided, that no State shall be allowed to have more 
than one State Council, without the consent of the National Council of the 
United States. (June, 1854.) 

Rule five. — In any State, District or Territory, where there may be more 
than one Organization working on the same basis (to wit, the Lodges' and 
"Councils") the same shall be required to combine; the officers of each Or- 
ganization shall resign, and new officers be elected ; and thereafter these bodies 
shall be known as State Councils, and Subordinate Councils, and new Charters 
shall be granted to them by the National Council. (June, 1854.) 

Rule six. — It shall be considered a penal offence for any brother not an officer 
of a Subordinate Council, to make use of the sign or summons adopted for pub- 
lic notification, except by direction of the President; or for officers of a Coun- 
cil to post the same at any other time than from midnight to one hour before 
daybreak, and this rule shall be incorporated into the By-laws of the State, 
District and Territorial Councils. (June, 1854.) 

Rule seven. — The determination of the necessity and mode of issuing fhe 
posters for public notification shall be entrusted to the State, District or Terri- 
torial Councils. (June, 1854.) 

Rule eight. — The respective State, District or Territorial Councils shall be 
required to make statements of the number of members within their respective 
limits, at the next meeting of this National Council, and annually thereafter, at 
the regular annual meeting. (June, 1854.) 

Rule nine. — The delegates to the Naticmal Council of the United States of 
North America, shall be entitled to three dollars per day for their attendance 
upon the National Council, and for each day that may be necessary in going and 
returning from the same ; and five cents per mile for every mile they may ne- 
cessarily travel in going to, and returning from, the place of meeting of the 
National Council; to be computed by the nearest mail route : which shall be 
paid out of the Treasury of the National Council. (November, 1854.) 

Rule ten. — Each State, District or Territorial Council, shall be taxed four 
cents per annum, for every member in good standing belonging to each Subor- 
dinate Council under its jurisdiction on the first day of April, which shall be 
reported to the National Council, and paid into the National Treasury, on or 
before the first day of the annual session, to be held in June ; and on the same 
day in each succeeding year. And the first fiscal year shall be considered aa 
commencing on the first day of December, 1854, and ending on the fifteenth 
day of May, 1855. (November, 1854.) 

Rule eleven. — The following shall be the Key to determine and ascertain the 
purport of any communication that may be addressed to the President of a 

•Note. — See Constitution, Art. 3, Sec. 4, p. 5. 



461 

State, District or Territorial Council by the President of the National Council, 
who is hereby iusLructcd to commuuicute a knowledge of the same to said offi- 
cers : 

ABCBEFGIIIJKLM 

1 7 13 19 25 2 8 U 20 26 3 9 15 

NOPQRSTUVWXYZ 

21 4 10 IG 22 5 11 17 23 6 12 18 24 

Rule twelve. — The clause of the article of the Constitution relative to belief 
in the Supreme Being is obligatory upon every State and Subordinate Council, 
as well as upon each individual member. (June, 1854.) 

Rule thirteenth. — The following shall be the compensation of the officers of 
this Council : 

1st. The Corresponding Secretary shall be paid two thousand dollars per an- 
num, from the 17th day of June, 1854. 

2d. The Treasurer shall be paid five hundred dollars per annum, from the 
17th day of June, 1854. 

3d. The Sentinels shall be paid five dollars for every day they may be in at- 
tendance on the sittings of the National Council. 

4th. The Chaplain shall be paid one hundred dollars per annum, from the 
17th day of June, 1854. 

5th. The Recording Secretary shall be paid five hundred dollars per annum, 
from the 17th day of June, 1854. 

6th. The Assistant Secretary shall be paid five dollars per day, for every day 
he may be in attendance on the sitting of the National Council. All of which 
is to be paid out of the National Treasury, on the draft of the President. (No- 
vember, 1854.) 

SPECIAL VOTING. 

Vote first. — Tliis National Council hereby grants to the State of Virginia two 
State Councils, tlie one to be located in Eastern and the other in Western Vir- 
ginia, the Blue Ridge Mountains being the geographical line between the two 
jurisdictions. (-June, 1854.) 

Vote second. — The President shall have power, till the next session of the 
National Council, to grant dispensations for the formation of Slate, District, or 
Territorial Councils, in form most agreeable to his own discretion, upon proper 
application being made. (June, 1854.) 

Vote third. — The seats of all delegates to and members of the present Na- 
tional Council shall be vacated on the first Tuesday in June, 1855, at the hour 
of six o'clock in the forenoon; and the National Council convening in annual 
session upon that day, shall be composed exclusively of delegates elected under 
and in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution, as amended at the 
present session of this National Council : provided, that this resolution shall 
uot apply to the officers of the National Council. (November, 1854.) 

Vote fourth. — The Corresponding Secretary of this Council is authorized to 
have printed the names of the delegates to this National Council ; also, those 
of the Presidents of the several State, District, and Territorial Councils, together 
with their address, and to forward a copy of the same to each person named ; 
and further, the Corresponding Secretaries of each State, District, and Territory, 
are requested to forward a copy of their several Constitutions to each other. 
(November, 1854.) 

Vote fifth. — In the publication of the Constitution and the Ritual, under the 
direction of the Committee — brother Deshler, Damrell and Stephens — the name, 
Signs, Grips, and Passwords of the Order, shall be indicated by [* * *,] and a 



462 

copy of fbe same shall be furnished to each State, District and Territorial 
Council, and to each member of that body. (November, 1854.) 

Vote sixth. — A copy of the Constitution of each State, District, and Territo- 
rial Council, shall be submitted to this Council for examination. (November, 
1854.) 

Vote seventh.— It shall be the duty of the Treasurer, at each annual meeting 
of this body, to make a report of all monies received or expended in the inter- 
val. (November, 1854.) 

Vote eighth. — Messrs. Gifford, of Pa. ; Barker, of N. Y. ; Deshler, of N. 
J. ; Williamson, of Va. ; and Stephens, of Md., are appointed a committee to 
confer wtth similar committees that have been appointed for the purpose of con- 
solidating the various American Orders, with power to make the nece^isary ar- 
rangements for such consolidation — subject to the approval of this National 
Council, at its next session. (November, 1854.) 

Vote ninth. — On the receipt of the new Ritual by the members of this Na- 
tional Council who have received the third degree, they or any of them may, and 
they are hereby empowered to confer the third degree upon members of this 
body in their respective States, Districts and Territories, and upon the Presidents 
and other officers of their State, District, and Territorial Councils. And fur- 
ther, the Presidents of the State, District, and Territorial Councils shall in the 
first instance confer the third degree upon as many of the Presidents and offi- 
cers of their Subordinate Councils, as can be assembled together in their res- 
pective localities, and afterwards the same may be conferred upon officers of 
other subordinate Councils, by any presiding officer of a Council, who shall 
have previously received it under the provisions of the Constitution. (Novem- 
ber, 1854.) 

Vote tenth. — To entitle any delegate to a seat in this National Council, at its 
annual session in June next, he must present a properly authenticated certificate 
that he was duly elected as a delegate to the same ; or appointed a substitute in 
accordance with the requirements of the Constitutions of State, Territorial, or 
District Councils. And no delegate shall be received from any State, District 
or Territorial Council, winch has not adopted the Constitution and Ptitual of 
this National Council. (November, 1854.) 

Vote eleventh. — The committee on printing the Constitution and Ritual is 
authorized to have a sufficient number of the same printed for the use of the 
Order. And no State, District, or Territorial Council, shall be allowed to re- 
print the same. (November, 1854.) 

Vote twelfth. — The right to establish all Subordinate Councils in any of the 
States, Districts, and Territories represented in this National Council, shall be 
confined to the State, District, and Territorial Councils, which they represent. 
(November, 1854.) 



Constitution for the Government of Subordinate Councils. 
Article I. 

Sec. 1. — Each Subordinate Council shall be composed of not less than thirteen 
members, all of whom shall have received all the degrees of the Order, and 

shall be known and recognized as Council, No. of the 

of the county of , and State of North Carolina. 

gee. 2. — No person shall be a member of any Subordinate Council in this 
State, unless he possesses all the qualifications, and comes up to all the require- 
ments laid down in the Constitution of the National Council, and whose wife, 
(if he has one,) is not a Roman Catholic. 



463 

Sec. 3.— No application for membership shall be received and acted on from 
a person residing out of the State, or resides in a county where tliere is a Coun- 
cil in existence, unless upon special cause to be stated to the Council, to be 
judo'cd of by the same; and such person, if the reasons be considered suffi- 
cient, may be initiated the same night ho is proposed, provided he resides five 
miles or more from the place where the Council is located. But no person can 
vote in any Council, except the one of which he is a member. 

gee. 4. — Every person applying for membership, shall be voted for by ballot, 
in open Council, if a ballot is requested by a single member. If one third of 
the votes cast be against the applicant, he shall be rejected. If any applicant 
be rejected, he shall not be again proposed within six months thereafter. ^ No- 
thing herein contained shall be construed to prevent the initiation of applicants 
privately, by those empowered to do so, in localities where there are no Coun- 
cils within a convenient distance. 

gee. 5. — Any member of one Subordinate Council wishing to change his 
membership to another Council, shall apply to the Council to which he belongs, 
either in writing or orally through another member, and the question shall be 
decided by the Council. If a majority are in favor of granting him an hono- 
rable dismission, he shall receive the same in writing, to be signed by the Pre- 
sident and countersigned by the Secretary. But until a member thus receiving 
an honorable dismission has actually been admitted to membership in another 
Council, he shall be held subject to the discipline of the Council from which he 
has received the dismission, to be dealt with by the same, for any violation of 
the requirements of the Order. Before being received in the Council, to which 
be wisbcs to transfer his membership, he shall present said certificate of hono- 
rable dismission, and shall be received as new members are. 

gee. G. — Applications for the Second Degree shall not be received except in 
Second Degree Councils, and voted on by Second and Third Degree members 
only, and applications for the Third Degree shall be received in Third Degree 
Councils, and voted on by Third Degree members only. 

Article II. 

Each Subordinate Council shall fix on its own time and place for meeting : 
and shall meet at least once a month, but where net very inconvenient, it is re- 
commended that they meet once a week. Thirteen members shall form a quo- 
rum for the transaction of business. Special meetings may be called by the 
President, at any time, at the request of four members of the Order. 

Article III. 

gee. 1. — The members of each Subordinate Council shall consist of a Presi- 
dent, Vice President, Instructor, Secretary, Treasurer, Marshal, Inside and 
Outside Sentinel, and shall hold their offices for the term of six months, or 
until their successors are elected and installed. 

gee. 2. — The officers of each Subordinate Council, (except the sentinels, who 
shall be appointed by the President,) shall be elected at the first regular meet- 
intrg in January and July, separately, and by ballot; and each shall receive a 
majority of all the votes cast to entitle him to an election. No member shall 
be elected to any office, unless he be present and signify his assent thereto at 
the time of his election. Any vacancy which may occur by death, resignation, 
or otherwise, shall be filled at- the next meeting thereafter, in the manner and 
form above described. 

gee. 3. — The President. — It shall be the duty of the President of each Sub- 
ordinate Council, to preside in the Council, and enforce a due observance of the 
Constitution and rules of the Order, and a proper respect for the State Council 
and the National Council — to have sole and exclusive charge of the Charter 



464 

and the Constitution and Ritual of the Order, which he must always have with 
him when his Council is in session, to see that all officers perform their respec- 
tive duties — to announce all hallotings to the Council — to decide all questions 
of order — to give the casting vote in all cases of a tie — to convene special 
meetings when deemed expedient — to draw warrants on the Treasurer for all 
sums, the payment of which is ordered by the Council — and to perform such 
other duties as are demanded of him by the Constitutions and Ilitual of the 
Order. 

Sec. 4. — The Vice President of each Subordinate Council shall assist the 
President in the discharge of his duties, whilst his Council is in session ; and 
in his absence, shall perform all the duties of the President. 

Sec. 5. — The Instructor shall perform the duties of the President, in the ab- 
sence of the President and Vice President, and shall, under the direction of the 
President, perform such duties as may be assigned to him by the llitual. 

Sec. G. — The Secretary shall keep an accurate record of the proceedings of 
the Council. He shall write all communications, fill all notices, attest all war- 
rants drawn by the President for the payment of money ; he shall keep a cor- 
rect roll of all the members of the Council, together with their age, residence 
and occupation, in the order in which they have been admitted ; he shall, at 
the expiration of every three months, make out a report of all work done dur- 
ing that time, which report he shall forward to the Secretary of the State Coun- 
cil ; and when superseded in his offi:?e, shall deliver all books, papers, &e., iu 
his hands, to his successor. 

Sec. T.^The Treasurer shall hold all monies raised exclusively for the use of 
the State Council, which he shall pay over to the Secretary of the State Council 
at its regular sessions, or whenever called upon by the President of the State 
Council. He shall receive all monies for the use of the Subordinate Council 
and pay all amounts drawn for on him, by the President of the Subordinate 
Council, if attested by the Secretary. 

Sec. 8. — The Marshal shall perform such duties, under the direction of the 
President, as may be required of him by the Ritual. 

Sec. 9. — The Inside Sentinel shall have charge of the inner door, and act 
under the directions of the President. He shall admit no person, unless he 
can prove himself a member of this order, and of the same Degree in which 
the Council is opened, or by order of the President, or is satisfactorily vouched 
for. 

Sec. 10. — The Outside Sentinel shall have charge of the outer door, and act 
in accordance with the orders of the I'resident. He shall permit no person to 
enter the outer door unless he give the password of the Degree in which the 
Council is at work, or is properly vouched for. 

Sec. 11. — The Secretary, Treasurer, and Sentinels, shall recive such compen- 
sation as the Subordinate Councils may each conclude to allow. 

Sec. 12. — Each Subordinate Council may levy its own fees for initiation, to 
raise a fund to pay its dues to the State Council, and to defray its own expen- 
ses. Each Council may, also, at its discretion, initiate without charging the 
usual fee, those it considers unable to pay the same. 

Sec. 13. — The President shall keep in his possession the Constitution and 
Ritual of the Order. He shall not suffer the same to go out of his possession 
under any pretence whatever, unless in case of absence, when he may put them 
in the hands of the Vice President or Instructor, or whilst the Council is in 
session, for the information of a member wishing to see it, for the purpose of 
initiation, or conferring of Degrees. » 

Article IV. 

Each Subordinate Council shall have power to adopt such By-Laws, Rules, 
and Regulations, for its own government, as it may think proper, not inconsis- 
tent with the Constitutions of the National and State Councils. 



465 
FORM OF APPLTCxVTIOX 

For a Charter to onjanize a new Council. 



Post Office county, 

Date . 



To 



President of the State Council of North Carolina : 

■\Ye, the undersigned, members of the Third Degree, being desirous of ex- 
tending the influence and usefulness of our organization, do hereby ask for a 
AVarranfc of Dispensation, instituting and organizing us as a subordinate branch 
of the Order, under the jurisdiction of the State Council of the State of North 

Carolina, to be known and hailed as Council No. , and to be located at 

, in the county of j State of North Carolina. 

And we do hereby pledge ourselves to be governed by the Constitution of 
the State Council of the State of North Carolina, and of the Grand Council of 
the U. S., N. A., and that we will; in all things, conform to the rules and usa- 
ges of the Order. 

Names. Kesidences. 

FORM OF DISMISSION 

From one Council to anotJicr. 

This is to certify that Brother , a member of Council, No. 

-, having made an application to change his membership from this Coun- 



cil to that of Council, No. , at , in the county of 

I do hereby declare, that said brother has received an honorable dismission from 

this Council, and is hereby recommended for membership in Council, 

][S'o. ^ in the county of , N. C. ; provided, however, that until 

Brother has been admitted to membership in said Council, he is to be 

considered subject to the discipline of this Council, to be dealt with by the 

same for any violation of the requirements of the Order. This the day 

of , 185 — , and the — year of American Independence. 

• President Council, 

No. . 

Secretary. 

FORM OF CERTIFICATE 

For DcJerjates to the State Council. 

Council, No. 



county of , N. C. 

This is to certify that ■ and were, at the regular meeting of 

this Council, held on the , 185 — , duly elected delegates to represent 

this Council in the next annual meeting of the State Council, to be held in 
, on the 3d Monday in November next. And by virtue of the autho- 
rity in me reposed, I do hereby declare the said and to be in- 
vested with all the rights, powers and privileges of the delegates as aforesaid. 
This being the day of , 185 — , and the year of our Na- 
tional Independence. 

President of 

Council, No. 

Secretary. 

30 



466 
FORM OF NOTICE. 

From the Suhordinate Councils to the State Council, tcJienever any memher of 
a Subordinate Council is expelled. 

Council, No. 



county of , N. C. 

To the President of the State Council of North Carolina : 

Sir: — This is to inform you that at a meeting of this Council, held on the 
day of , 185 — , was duly expelled from membership in 



said Council, and thus deprived of all the privileges, rights and benefits of this 
Organization. 

In accordance with the provision of the Constitution of the State Council, 
you are hereby duly notified of the same, that you may officially notify all the 

Subordinate Councils of the State to be upon their guard against the said , 

as one unworthy to associate with patriotic and good men, and [if expelled for 

violating his chligalion) as a perjurer to Crod and his country. The said 

is about years of age, and is by livelihood, a . 

Duly certified, this the day of 185 — , and in the year of our Na- 
tional Independence. 

President of 

Council, No. . 

Secretary. 



FIRST DEGREE COUNCIL. 

To be admitted to membership in this order, the applicant shall be — 

1st. Proposed and found acceptable. 

2nd. Introduced and examined under the guarantee of secrecy. 

3d. Placed under the obligation which the order imposes. 

4th. Required to enroll his name and place of residence. 

5th. Instructed in the forms and usages and ceremonies of the order. 

6th. Solemnly charged as to the objects to be obtained, and his duties. 

[A recommendation of a candidate to this order, shall be received only from 
a brother of approved integrity. It shall he accompanied by minute particulars 
as to name, age, calling, and residence, and by an explicit voucher for his quali- 
fications, and a personal pledge for his fidelity. These particulars shall be re- 
corded by the secretary in a book kept for that purpose. The recommendation 
may be referred, and the ballot taken at such time, and in such a manner as 
the State Council may prescribe; but no communication shall be made to the 
candidate until the ballot has been declared in his favor. Candidates shall be 
received in the ante-room by the Marshal and the Secretary.] 

OUTSIDE. 

Marshal. — Do you believe in a supreme Being, the Creator and Preserver of 
the universe. 

Ans. — I do. 

Marshal. — Before proceeding further, wc require a solemn obligation of 
secrecy and truth. If you will take such an obligation, you will lay your right 
hand upon the Holy Bible and Cross. 

(When it is known that the applicant is a Protestant; the cross may be omit- 
ted, or affirmatioa may be allowed.) 



467 

OBLIGATION. 

You do solemnly swear (or affirm) that you will never reveal anytliing said 
or done in this room, the names of any persons present, nor the existence of 
this society, whether found worthy to proceed or not, uud that all your declara- 
tions shall be true, so help you God ? 

J«s.— " I do." 

JLirshaL — Where were you born ? 

Marshal. — Where is your permanent residence ? 

(If born out of the jurisdiction of the United States, the answer shall be 
written, the candidate dismissed with an admonition of secrecy, and the brother 
vouching for him suspended from all the privileges of the order, unless upoa 
satisfactory proof that he has been misinformed.) 

Marshal. — Are you twenty-one years of age ? 

Ans. — *' I am." 

Marshal. — Were you born of Protestant parents or were you reared under 
Protestant influence ? 

Ans. — " Yes." 

sMorshdl. — If married, is your wife a Roman Catholic ? 

C No" or '' Yes" — the answer to be valued as the Constitution of the State 
Council shall provide.) 

Marshal. — Are you willing to use your influence and vote only for native-born 
American citizens for all offices of honor, trust or profit in the gift of the peo- 
ple, to the exclusion of all foreigners and aliens, and Human Catholics in parti- 
cular, and without regard to party predilections ? 

Ans.—" I am." 

INSIDE. 

(The Marshal shall then repair to the council in session, and present the 
written list of names, vouchers and answers to the President, who shall cause 
them to be read aloud, and a vote of the council to be taken on each name, ia . 
such manner as prescribed by its bye-laws. If doubts arise in the ante-room, 
they shall be referred to the council. If a candidate be dismissed, he shall be 
admonished to secrecy. The candidates declared elected shall be conducted to 
seats within the council, apart from the brethren. When all are present the 
President by one blow of the gavil, shall call to order and say :) 

President. — Brotlier Marshal, introduce the candidates to the Vice-President. 

Marshal. — Worthy Vice-President, I present to you these candidates, who 
have duly answered all questions. 

Vice-Fresident, rising in his place. — Gentlemen, it is my office to welcome 
you as friends. When you shall have assumed the patriotic vow by which we 
are all bound, we will embrace you as brothers. I am authorized to declare that 
our obligations enjoin nothing which is inconsistent with the duty which every 
good man owes to his Creator, his country, his family or himself. We do not 
compel you, against your convictions, to act with us in our good work ; but should 
you at any time wish to withdraw, it will be our duty to grunt you a dismissal in 
good faith. If satisfied with this assurance, you will rise upon your feet, (paus- 
ing (ill they do so,) place the left hand upon the breast, and raise the right hand 
towards heaven. 

(The brethren to remain seated till called up.) 

OBLIGATION. 

In the presence of Almighty God and these witnesses, you do solemnly pro- 
mise and swear that you will never betray any of the secrects of this society, 



468 

nor communicate tbem even to proper candidates, except within a la\vful conncil 
of the order; that jou never will permit any of the secrets of this society to be 
written, or in any other manner made legible, except for the purpose of official 
instruction ; that you will not vote, nor give your influence for any man, for any 
office in the gift of the people, unless he be an American born citizen, in favor 
of Americans ruling America, nor if he be a Roman Catholic ; that you will in 
all political matters, so far as this order is concerned, comply with the will of 
the majority, though it may conflict with your personal preference, so long as it 
does not conflict with the Constitution of the United States of America or that 
of the State in which you reside ; that you will not, under any circumstances 
whatever, knowingly recommend an unworthy person for initiation, nor sufier 
it to be done if in your power to prevent it; that you will not, under any cir- 
cumstances, expose the name of any member of this order, nor reveal the ex- 
istence of such an association ; that you will answer an imperative notice issued 
hy the proper authority; obey the command of the State Council, President, 
or his deputy, while assembled by such notice, and respond to the claim of_ a 
aign or a cry of the order, unless it be physically impossible; and that you will 

acknowledge the State Council of as the legislative head, the ruling au- 

thority, and the supreme tribunal of the order in the State of , acting 

under the jurisdiction of the National Council of the United States of North 
America. 

Bindino- yourself in the penalty of excommunication from the order, the for- 
feiture of°all intercourse with its members, and being denounced in all the soci- 
eties of the same, as a wilful traitor to your God and your country. 

(The President shall call up every person present by three blows of the ga- 
vil, when the candidates shall all repeat after the Vice-President in concert :) 

All this I voluntarily and sincerely promise, with a full understanding of the 
solemn sanctions and penalties. 

Vice-President. — You have now taken solemn oaths, and made as sacred pro- 
mises as man can make, that you will keep all our secrets inviolate; and we wi.sh 
you distinctly to understand that he that takes these oaths and makes these pro- 
mises, and then violates them, leaves the foul, the deep and blighting stain of 
perjury resting on his soul. 

President. (Having seated all by one blow of the gavil.) — Brother Instruc- 
tor these new brothers having complied with the demands of the order, are en- 
titled to the secrets and privileges of the same. You will, therefore, invest 
them with everything appertaining to the first degree. 

Instructor. — Brothers : the practices and proceedings in our order are as fol- 
lows : , . , . . ., 

We have pass-words necessary to be used to obtain admission to our councils ; 
forms for our conduct while there; means of recognizing each other when abroad; 
means of mutual protection ; and methods for giving notices to members. 

At the outer door you will* {make any ordinary alarm to attract the notice 
of the outside sentinel.) ' 

When the wicket is opened you will pronounce the (words— what's the pass,) 
in a whisper. The outside sentinel will reply ( Give it), when you will give the 
term pass-word and be admitted to the ante-room. You will then proceed to 

«• In the Ritual the words in parenthesis are omitted. In the key to the Ritual, they are 
written in figures— the alphabet used being the same as printed below. So throughout. 

Key to Unlock Know Nothing Commum'cations. 



A 


B 


C! 


D 


E 


F 


G 


H 


I 


J 


K 


L 


M 


1 


7 


IB 


19 


25 


2 


8 


14 


20 


26 


8 


9 


15 


N 


O 


P 


' Q 


R 


S 


T 


U 


V 


W 


X 


Y 


Z 


21 


4 


10 


16 


22 


5 


11 


17 


23 


6 


12 


18 


24 



469 

the inner door and give (one rap). When the wicket is opened, give your 
name, the number of, and location of your council, the explanation of the term 
pass, and the degree pass-word. 

If these be found correct, you will be admitted ; if not, your name will be 
reported to the Vice-President, and must be properly vouched for before you 
can gain admission to the council. You will then proceed to the centre of the 
room and address the (Pnsidcnf) with the countersign, which is performed thus, 
(placiiKj the riglit hand diatjonallij across the mouth.) When this salutation is 
recognized, you wiil quietly take your seat. 

This sign is peculiar to this degree, and is never to be used outside of the 
corncil room, nor during the conferring of this degree. When retiring, you 
will address the ( Vice-President) in the same manner, and also give the degree 
pass-word to the inside sentinel. 

The " term pass-word" is ( TFe are.) 

(The pass-word and explanation is to be established by each State Council for 
its respective subordinates.) 

The *' explanation" of the "term-pass," to be used at the inner door, is {our 
coiintri/'s hope.) 

The "degree pass-word" is (Amative.) 

The "travelling pass-word" is {17ie tneriiory of our pihjritn fathers.) 

(This word is changed annually by the President of the National Council of 
the United States, and is to be made and used only when the brother is travel- 
ing beyond the jurisdiction of his own State, District or Territory. It and all 
other pass-words must be communicated in a whisper, and no brother is entitled 
to communicate them to another, without authority from the presiding ofticer.) 

The "sign of recognition" is {graspinq the right lappel of the coat with the 
right hand, the fore finger being extended inwards.) 

The " answer" is given by (a similar action toith the left hand.) 

The " grip" Js given by (an ordinary shake of the hand.) 

The person challenging shall [then draw the fore finger along the palm of the 
hand.) The answer will be given by (a. similar action forming a link hij hook- 
ing together the ends of the fore finger f) when the following conversation en- 
sues — the challenging party first saying (is that yours f) The answer, {^it is.) 
Then the response Qiow did you. get it ?), followed by the rejoinder (it is my 
hirth-riglit.) 

Public notice for a meeting is given by means of a (jriece of tvhite j^aper the 
shape of a heart.} 

(In citiesf the *** of the *** where the meeting is to be held, will be written 
legibly upon the notice ; and upon the election day said '^** will denote the *** 
where your presence is needed. This notice will never be passed, but will be 
*** or thrown upon the sidewalk with a '■''** in the centre.) 

If information is wanting of the object of the gathering, or of the place, &c., 
the inquirer will ask of an undoubted brother (whereas when?) The brother 
will give the information if possessed of it; if not, it will be yours and his 
duty to continue the inquiry, and thus disseminate the call throughout the 
brotherhood. 

If the color of [the paper) be {red,) it will denote actual trouble, which re- 
quires that you come prepared to meet it. 

The " cry of distress" — to be used only in time of danger, or where the 
American interests requires an immediate assemblage of the brethren — is [oh, 
oh, oh.) The response is [hio, hio, h-i-o.) 

The "sign of caution" — to be given when a brother is speaking unguardedly 
before a stranger — is [drawing the fore-finger and thumb together across the 
eyes, the rest of the hand being closed,) which signifies " keep dark." 

t Concerning what is said of cities, the key to the Ritual says ; " Considered unnecessary to 
decipher what is said in regard to cities," 



470 

Brothers, 3'ou are now initiated into and made acquainted wiih tbe work and 
organization of a council of this degree of the order ; and the Marshal will 
present you to the worthy I'residont for admonition. 

President. — It has, no doubt, been long apparent to you, brothers, that fo- 
reign influence and Roman Catholicism have been making steady and alarming 
progress in our country. You cannot have failed to observe the significant 
transition of the foreigner and llomanist from a character quiet, retiring, and 
even abject, to one bold, threatening, turbulent and despotic in its appearance 
and assumptions. You must iiave become alarmed at the systematic and rapid- 
ly augmenting power of these dangerous and unnatural elements of our national 
condition. So is it, brothers, with others beside yourselves in every State of 
the Union. A sense of danger has struck the great heart of the nation. In 
every city, town and hamlet, the danger has been seen and the alarm sounded. 
And hence true men have devised this order as a means of disseminating patri- 
otic principles, of keeping alive the fire of national virtue, of fostering the na- 
tional intelligence, and of advancing America and the American interest on the 
one side, and on the other of checking the strides of the foreigner or alien, 
or thwarting the machinations and subverting the deadly plans of the Papist 
and Jesuit. 

Note. — The President shall impress upon the initiates the importance of 
secrecy, the manner of proceeding in recommending candidates for initiation, 
and the responsibility of the duties which they have assumed. 

SECOND DEGREE COUNCIL. 

Marshal. — "Worthy President : These brothers have been duly elected to the 
second degree of this order. I present them to you for obligation. 

President. — Brothers : You will place your left hand upon your right breast, 
and extend your right hand towards the flag of our country, preparatory to 
obligation. (Each council room should have a neat American flag festooned 
over the platform of the President.) 

OBLIGATION. 

You, and each of you, of your own free will and accord, in the presence of 
Almighty God and these witnesses, your left hand resting upon your right 
breast, and your right hand extended to the flag of your country, do solemnly 
and sincerely swear, that you will not under any circumstances disclose in any 
manner, nor suffer it to be done by others, if in your power to prevent it, the 
name, signs, passwords, or other secrets of this degree, except in open council 
for the purpose of instruction ; that you will in all things conform to all the 
rules and regulations of this Order, and to the constitution and by-laws of this 
or any other council to which you may be attached, so long as they do not con- 
flict with the Constitution of the United States, nor that of the State in which 
you reside ; that you will under all circumstances, if in your power so to do, 
attend to all regular signs or summons that inay be thrown or sent to you by a 
brother of this or any other degree of this order ; that you will support in all 
political matters, for all political offices, members of this order in preference to 
other persons ; that if it may be done legally, you will, when elected or ap- 
pointed to any official station conferring on you the power to do so, remove all 
foreigners, aliens, or Roman Catholics from office or place, and that you will in 
no case appoint such to any office or place in your gift. You do also promise 
and swear that this and all other obligations which you have previously taken 
in this order, shall ever be kept through life sacred and inviolate. All this you 
promise and declare, as Americans, to sustain and abide by, without any hesita- 



471 

tion or mental reservation whatever. So help you God and keep you stead- 
fast. 

(Each will answer ''I do.") , , , ^ ^^ r 

Frcsulcut.—Bvother Marshal, you will now present the brothers to the In- 
structor for instructions in the second degree of the order. 

J/a/-s/ia?.— Brother Instructor, by direction of our worthy President, 1 pre- 
sent these brothers before you that you may instruct them m the secrets and 
mysteries of the second degree of the order. 

Instructor.— brothers, in this degree we have an entering sign anda counter- 
sign x\t the outer door proceed {as in the first degree.) At the inner door 
you will make {two raps,) and proceed as in the first degree, giving the second 
decrree pass-woi«d, whicL is (American,) instead of that of the first degree. If 
found to be correct, you will then be admitted, and proceed (to the centre of the 
roo77i,) giving the countersign, which is made thus {extending the right arm to 
the national Jlag over the President, the j) aim of the hand being upwards.) _ 

The sif^n of recognition in this degree is the same as in the first degree, with 
the additton of {the middle finger,) and the response to be made in a {sinular 

Marshal, you will now present the brothers to the worthy President for ad- 
monition, r J 

J/a/-s7i«7.— Worthy President, I now present these candidates to you tor ad- 
monition. - 

Fresident.— Brothers, you are now duly initiated into the second degree ot 
this order. Renewing the congratulations which we extended to you upou your 
admission to the first degree, we admonish you by every tie that may nerve pa- 
triots, to aid us in our etforts to restore the political institutions ot our country 
to their original purity. Begin with the youth of our land. Instil into their 
minds the lessons of our countr;y's history— the glorious battles and the brilliant 
deeds of patriotism of our fathers, through which we received the inestimable 
blessings of civil and religious liberty. Point them to the example of the sages 
and the statesmen who founded our government. Implant in their bosoms an 
ardent love for the Union. Above all else, keep alive in their bosoms the me- 
mory, the maxims, and the deathless example of our illustrious U AbHlISCj- 
TON. , . , , 

Brothers, recalling to your minds the solemn obligations which you have 
severally taken in this and the first degree, I now pronounce you entitled to all 
the privileges of membership in this the second degree of our Order. 

THIRD DEGREE COUNCIL. 

3Iarshal— Worthy President, these brothers having been duly elected to the 
third degree of this order, I present them before you for obligation. 

Fresident.— Brothers, you will place yourselves in a circle around me, each 
one crossing your arms upon your breasts, and grasping firmly each other's 
■ hands, holding the right hand of the brother on the right, and the left hand of 
the brother on the left, so as to form a circle, symbolical of the links of an un- 
broken chain, and of a ring which has no end. 

Note. — This degree is to be conferred with the national flag elevated in the 
centre of the circle, by the side of the President or Instructor, and not on less 
than five at any one time, in order to give it solemnity, and also for the forma- 
tion of the circle — except in the first instance of conferring it on the ofiicers of 
the State and subordinate councils, that they may be empowered to progress 

with the work. v, -r» • j 

The obligation and charge in this degree may be given by the President or 
Instructor, as the President may prefer. 



• 472 

OBLIGATION. 

You and eacli of you, of your own free vpill and accord, in the presence of 
Almighty God and these witnesses, with your hands joined in token of that fra- 
ternal affection which should ever bind together the States of this Union — for- 
ming a ring, in token of your determination that, so far as your efforts can 
avail, this Union shall have no end — do solemnly and sincerely swear [or affirm] 
that you will not under any circumstances disclose in any manner, nor suffer it 
to be done by others if in your power to prevent it, the name, signs, passwords 
or other secrets of this degree, except to those to whom you may prove on trial 
to be brothers of the same degree, or in open council, for the purpose of instruc- 
tion ; that you do hereby solemnly declare your devotion to the Union of these 
States; that in the discharge of your duties as American citizens, you will up- 
hold, maintain and defend it; -that you will discourage and discountenance any 
and every attempt, coming from any and every quarter, which you believe to 
be designed or calculated to destroy or subvert it, or to weaken its bonds ; and 
that you will use your influence, so far as in your power, in endeavoring to pro- 
cure an amicable and equitable adjustment of all political discontents or differ- 
ences, which may threaten its injury or overthrow. You further promise and 
swear [or affirm,] that you will not vote for any one to fill any office of honor, 
profit or trust of a political character, whom you know or believe to be in favor 
of a dissolution of the Union of these States, or who is endeavoring to produce 
that result; that you will vote for and support for all political offices, third or 
Union degree members of this Order in preference to all others; that if it may 
be done consistently with the constitution and laws of the land, you will, when 
elected or appointed to any official station which may confer on you the power 
to do so, remove from office or place all persons whom you know or believe to 
be in favor of a dissolution of the Union, or who are endeavoring to produce 
that result; and that you will in no case appoint such persons to any political 
office or place whatever. All this you promise and swear [or affirm] upon your 
honor as American citizens and friends of the American Union, to sustain and 
abide by without any hesitation or mental reservation whatever. You also pro- 
mise and swear [or affirm] that this and all other obligations which you have 
previously taken in this order, shall ever be kept sacred and inviolate. To all 
this you pledge your lives, your fortunes, and your sacred honors. So help you 
God and keep you steadfast. 

(Each one shall answer, " I do.") 

President. — Brother Marshal, you will now present the brothers to the In- 
structor for final instruction in this the third degree of the Order. 

Marslial. — Instructor, by direction of our worthy President, I present these 
brothers before you that you may instruct them in the secrets and mysteries of 
this the third degree of our Order. 

Instructor. — Brothers, in this degree as in the second, we have an entering 
pass-word, a degree pass-word and a token of salutation. At the outer door 
(make any ordinary alarm. The outside sentinel will say U ; you say ni ; the 
sentinel will rejoin on.) This will admit you to the inner door. At the inner 
door you will make (three) distinct [raps.) Then announce your name, with 
the number (or name) and location of the council to which you belong, giving 
the explanation to the pass-word, which is (safe.) If found correct, you will 
then be admitted, when you will proceed to the centre of the room, and placing 
the (hands on the hrcast with the flii^ers in^rlockcd,) give the token of saluta- 
tion which is (hy howinj to the President.) You will then ciuietly take your 
seat. 

The sign of recognition is made by the same action a^ in the second degree, 
•with the addition of (the third faujcr,) and the response is made by (a smilar 
action with the left hand.') 



473 

(The grip is given by taking hold of the Jiand in the usual toay, and then by 
slipping thcjimjers around on the top of the thumb ; then extending the litttle 
finyer and pressing the inside of the wrist. The person challenging shall say, 
do you hnoio what that is ? The answer is, yes. The challenging party shall 
say, further, what is it? The answer is, Union.) 

'[The Instructor will here give the grip of this degree, with explanations, and 
also the true password of this degree, which is {Union.y] 

CHARGE. 

To be given by the President. • 

Brothers, it is with great pleasure that I congratulate you_ upon your ad- 
vancement to the third degree of our Order. The responsibilities you have 
now assumed, are more serious and weighty than those which preceded, and are 
committed to such only as have been. tried and found worthy. Our obligations 
are intended as solemn avowals of our duty to the land that gave us birth ; to 
the memories of our fathers; and to the happiness and welfare of our children. 
Consecrating to your country a spirit unselfish and a fidelity like that which 
distinguisbcd the patriots of the Revolution, you have pledged your aid in ce- 
menting the bonds of a Union which we trust will endure forever. Your de- 
portment since your initiation has attested your devotion to the principles we 
desire to establish, and has inspired a coufide-nce in your patriotism, of which 
we can give no higher proof than your reception here. 

The dangers which threaten American Libeity arise from foes without and 
from enemies within. The first degree pointed out the source arjd nature of our 
most imminent peril, and indicated the first measure of safety. The second 
degree defined the next means by which, in coming time, such ussaults may be 
rendered harmless. The third degree, which you have just received, not only 
reiterates the lessons of the other two, but it is intended to avoid and provide 
for a more remote, but no less terrible danger, from domestic enemies to our 
free institutions. 

Our object is briefly this : — to perfect an organization modelled after that of 
the Constitution of the United States, and co-extensive with the confederacy. 
Its object and principles, in all matters of national concern, to be unifurm and 
identical, whilst in all local matters the component parts shall remain indepen- 
dent and sovereign within their respective limits. 

The great result to be attained — the only one which can secure a perfect gua- 
ranty as to our future — is UNION; permanent, enduring, fraternal UNIONJ 
Allow me, then, to impress upon your minds and memories the touching senti- 
ments of the Father of his Country, in his farewell address : 

*' The unity of government which constitutes you one people," says Wash- 
ington, *' is justly dear to you, for it is the main pillar in the edifice of your 
real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, of your peace 
abroad, of your safety, your prosperity— even that liberty you .so justly prize. 

<' * * It is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the iui- 
mense value of your National Union, to your collective and individual happi- 
ness. You should cherish a cordial, habitual and immovable attachment to it; 
accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it, as the palladium of your polit- 
ical safety and prosperity ; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety ; 
discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any 
event be abandoned ; and indignantly frowning upon the dawning of every at- 
tempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the 
sacred ties which now bind together the various parts." 

Let these words of paternal advice and warning, from the greatest man that 
ever lived, sink deep into your hearts. Cherish them, and teach your children 



474 

to reverence them, as you cherish and reverence the memory of Washington 
himself. The Union of these States is the great conservator of that liberty so 
di-ar to the American heart. Without it, our greatness as a nation would dis- 
appear, and our boasted self-government prove a signal failure. The very name 
of Liberty, and the hopes of struggling Freedom throughout the world, must 
perish in the wreck of this Union. Devote yourselves, then, to its maintenance, 
as our fathers did to the cause of independence ; consecrating to its support, as 
you have sworn to do, your lives, your fortunes, and your sacred honors. 

Brothers : Recalling to your minds the solemn obligations which you have 
severally taken in this and the preceding degrees, I now pronounce you entitled 
to all the privileges of membership in this .organization, and take pleasure iu 
informing you that you are now members of the Order of (jhe American 
Union.) 

OFFICERS OF THE NATIONAL COUNCIL. 

President, James W. Barker, of New York, N. Y. 

Vice President, W. W. Williamson, of Alexandria, Va. 

Corresponding Secretary, C. D. Deshler, of New Brunswick, N. J. 

Ptecording Secretary, James M. Stephens, of Baltimore, Md. 

Treasurer, Henry Crane, of Cincinnati, Ohio. 

Inside Sentinel, John P. Hilton, of Washington, D. C. 



CONSTITUTION OF THE 

NORTH CAROLINA STATE COUNCIL. 

Adopted January IStJi, 1855. 

Article I. 

Sec. 1.— This body shall be known by the name of the NORTH CARO- 
LINA STATE COUNCIL ; and shall be composed of delegates appointed by 
the Subordinate Councils, as hereinafter provided. 

Sec. 2. — A person to become a member of any Subordinate Council in this 
State, must be twenty-one years of age ; he must believe in the existence of a 
Supreme Being as the Creator and Preserver of the Universe ; he must be a 
native-born citizen, a Protestant, either born of Protestant parents, or reared 
under Protestant influence ; and not united in marriage with a Roman Catholic. 

Sec. 3. — The State Council shall be composed of two delegates from each 
Subordinate Council in the State, to be appointed at the first regular meeting of 
the same, that shall be held after the first day of October in each and every 
year, whose term of appointment shall continue for one year ; provided, that 
this section shall not affect the tenure of office, until the first day of October, 
1855, of any member of the present Council ; and provided further, that an 
appointment may be made at any regular meeting of said Subordinate Councils 
to fill vacancies. 

Sec 4. — The State Council shall be vested with the following powers, viz : 

It shall be the chief head and authority of the Order in the State of North 
Carolina, subject to the requirements of the National Council. It shall have 
power to establish terra and explanation passwords for the State, and Subordi- 
nate Councils in the State, and such other secret work as to it may seem neces- 
sary. It shall have power to exact from the Subordinate Councils, annual or 
quarterly statements as to the number of members under their respective juris- 



475 

dictions, and also as to all other matters it may deem ossontial for full and nec- 
essary information. It shall have the sole power of forming and establisliing 
Subordinate Councils in the State, and of granting dispensations or charters for 
the same — provided, however, that when the State Council is not in session, the 
President thereof may grant such dispensations — and provided, further, that no 
dispensation or charter shall be issued hereafter for the formation of a Subor- 
dinate Council, unless the application therefor be signed by at least thirteen 
full degree members of this Order, who are in good and regular standing. It 
shall have the. power to decide on a mode of punishment in case of a derelic- 
tion of duty on the part of its officers or members. 

Sec. 5. — The State Council shall hold its regular annual meeting on the third 
Monday in November of each and every year, at such place in the State as may 
be agreed on by the same at the preceding regular annual session — provided, 
however, that tlfb President of the State Council may convene the same in the 
city of Raleigh, at any time he may think the interests of the Order imperi- 
ously require it. 

Article II. 

gee. 1. — The officers of the State Council shall be a President, Vice Presi- 
dent, Secretary, Treasurer, Marshal, Chaplain, Inside Sentinel, Outside Senti- 
nel, and such other officers as the State Council may see fit to appoint from time 
to time; and the Secretary, Treasurer, and Sentinels shall receive such compen- 
sation for their services, as the Council may determine. 

Article III. 

gee. 1, — The President shall preside when present, and in his absence the 
Vice President shall preside ; and in the absence of both, the Council shall 
elect a President jrro tern., and the presiding officer may at all times call a 
member to the chair, but such appointment shall never extend beyond one day. 

gee. 2. — The President shall preserve order, and cause the Constitution and 
the laws to be strictly observed by all the members. His decisions upon all 
points of order shall be obeyed, unless reversed upon appeal. He shall have 
the casting vote in all cases. He shall sign all orders on the State Treasurer 
for the payment of money, and all other documents requiring his signature. 
He .shall fill all vacancies in the State offices, until the next regular annual 
meeting of the Council. He shall transmit the ritual passwords, or other se- 
cret matters of the Order, to the proper officers of the Subordinate Councils — 
and exercise general supervision over the Order throughout the State, according 
to its Constitution, Laws, and usages. 

gee. 8. — The Secretary shall keep a record of the proceedings of the State 
Council ; file all documents connected therewith j preserve all books and papers 
belonffino' to the same ; and have the custody of the seal of the same. He 
shall receive all monies due to the State Council, and pay over the same to the 
Treasurer; attest all ojders drawn on the Treasurer for monies appropriated by, 
the State Council, and keep the accounts of the State Council with the Subor- 
dinate Councils. He shall attest all dispensations and orders of the State Coun- 
cit, and when directed, summon all members to attend its special meetings. 
He shall transmit an annual report of the state of the Order, in North Caroli- 
na, to the President of the National Council. He shall conduct the necessary 
correspondence of the State Council, and attend to such other clerical business 
as the State Council may direct. He shall be entitled to receive for his servi- 
ces such compensation as the State Council may, from time to time, determine 
upon, not exceeding the silm of $500 per year, and shall give such bond and 
security as the State Council may require. 



476 

Soc. 4. — The Treasurer shall have the custody of the funds of the State 
Council ; keep accurate accounts of all monies received by him from the Secre- 
tary, and pay all orders drawn on him by the President, and attested by the 
Secretary. He shall keep all his accounts regularly posted up iu a book, to be 
kept for the purpose, at every regular session of the State Coancil, and submit 
them to the same, or to any committee appointed for that purpose, together 
with a written report setting forth in detail the affairs and condition of the 
Treasury. He shall give such bond and security as the State Council may from 
time to time require, and in a sura not less than double the amouut he will 
probably at any one time have in his hands ; and he shall receive such compen- 
sation for his services as the State Council may agree upon, not exceeding the 
sum of 8100 per annum. 

Sec. 5. — The Marshal shall obey the orders of the President in the govern- 
ment and proceedings of the State Council; shall present officers elect for in- 
stallation ; receive and introduce delegates and visitors, and perform such other 
appropriate duties as the State Council may direct. 

Sec. 6. — The Chaplain's duty will be to open the sessions of the State Coun- 
cil with prayer, and to lecture before the Subordinate Councils, as may be con- 
venient. 

Article IV. 

Sec. 1. — All officers of the State Council, provided for in this Constitution 
(except the Sentinels, who shall be appointed by the President,) shall be elec- 
ted by ballot, at the regular annual meeting of the Council ; and shall, on the 
last day of the session of the same, be installed in such manner and form as 
the National Council, or the President thereof, may establish. 

Sec. 2. — A majority of the votes cast shall be necessary to an election to any 
office. 

Sec. 8. — In all sessions of the State Council, forty members shall constitute 
a quorum, for the transaction of business. 

Article V. 

Sec. 1. — The State Council shall hear and decide all questions of appeal 
from the decisions of Subordinate Councils, and may establish a fo'rm of ap- 
peal. 

Sec. 2. — The State Council shall have power to levy a tar upon the Subor- 
dinate Councils, for the support of the National Council, to be paid in such 
manner and at such times as the National Council shall determine. It shall 
also Imve power to levy a tax for the support of the State Council, to be paid 
at such time and in such manner as the State Council shall determine. 

Article VI. 

The delegates to the National Council shall be elected by ballot at the regu- 
lar 'annual meeting of the State Council, in November. 

Article VII. 

The State Council shall have power to adopt all such by-laws, rules and reg- 
ulations for its own government, and also for the government of the Subordinate 
Councils, as it may deem necessary for uniformity and the general good of the 
Order, not inconsistent with this Constitution, or the Constitution of the Na- 
tional Council. 



477 
Article YIII. 

Sec. 1. — The political powers of the State Council shall bo limited to the se- 
lection of candidates for State officers, to be supported by the members of this 
Order — which selections may be by bailor, or viva voce, as the Council may 
decide; provided, however, that in the selection of a candidate for Governor of 
the State, the State Council may, at its regular annual meeting next before the 
election for such offices, either make the nominations itself, or call a convention 
of the order in the State, at such time and place as the State Council may de- 
cide for the purpose of making tsuch nominations — and in case of the calling 
of such convention, the Subordinate Councils shall be represented in such coii- 
veution, as according to the provisions of this Constitution they are to be rep- 
resented in the State Council, and subject to the same manner and proportion- 
ate strength in casting the vote. 

Sec. 2. — In the selection of candidates for all offices to be filled by the Gen- 
eral Assembly, the following method shall be preserved, viz : 

For United States Senators, Secretary of State, Treasurer, Comptroller, Su- 
perintendent of Common Schools, Judges of the Supreme and Superior Courts, 
Attorney General, and Solicitors, and all other offices now provided, or hereaf- 
ter created by law, whose appointment devolve on the General Assembly, a ma- 
jorit}' of the State Council shall decide upon the candidate to be supported by 
the Order. 

Sec. 3. — In the selection of candidates for Congress, the Subordinate Coun- 
cils in each Congressional District, shall each sglect three delegates, who shall 
meet on the second Monday in May, of each year in which the Congressional 
elections take place, at the places fixed by law for comparing the votes in the 
said District, and proceed to select the candidate for that District. A majority 
of all the delegates from all the -Subordinate Councils in each and every coun- 
ty, shall cast the same number of votes the said county is entitled to mera- 
bert) in the House of Commons in the State Legislature — a majority of the 
v?hole number of votes cast being necessary to a selection ; provided, however 
that in those Congressional Districts in which the law provides that the returns 
shall be compared at some place other than a county town, in such Districts 
the delegates shall meet at the county town in such county instead of the 
place designated by law. 

Sec. 4. — The selection of candidates for members of the General Assembly 
shall be by the Subordinate Councils in the following manner, viz: For mem- 
bers of the House of Commons, for Sheriff, Clerks of the County and Superior 
Courts, County Solicitors, and all other officers elected by the people or the 
County Courts, if there be but one Council in the county, the Council shall 
make the selection by the vote of the majority — if there be more than one 
Council in the county, then each Council shall select one delegate for every 
thirteen members, not counting fractions, in the same, and when delegates from 
the several Councils shall have met at such time and place as may be at^reed 
upon, the majority shall make the selection ; provided, however, that where 
there is more than one Council in a county, the Council at the county seat shall 
have the power to appoint the time and place for the assembling county conven- 
tions for the nomination of candidates, and calling general meetings of the Or- 
der in said county for the good of the same. In the selection of candidates for 
State Senators, the same rule shall prevail, except that the delegates from the 
Councils in the Districts where the District is composed of more counties than 
one, shall meet at such time and place as may be agreed on by them, and then 
and there make the nomination. 

Sec. 5. — In tho election of candidates for Mayor, or Intendant of towns, and 
of Commissioners for the same, the Subordinate Council in such town shall 
make the nominations by ballot; and in those towns where the several wards 



478 

vote separately for Commissioners in the same, the candidates shall be nominated 
for one ward at a time, iustead of nominating the whole Board by general tic- 
ket; a majority of the whole number of ballots cast being necessary to a 
choice. 

Sec. G. — In the selection of candidates for Electors of President and Vice- 
President, the Subordinate Councils in each Electoral District, shall each select 
three delegates, who shall meet at such time as the good of the Order may re- 
quire the ticket to be formed, at the places fixed by law for comparing the votes 
in such Electoral District, and proceed to select the candidate for Elector in 
that Electoral District. The same rules, regulations and provisions shall be ob- 
served, as to the place and manner of making the selections, as are provided for 
the selections of candidates for Congress. 

Sec. 7. — In all nominations herein provided for, whether by the State or Sub- 
ordinate Councils, the vote shall be by ballot. 

Sec. 8. — Members of this Order who shall fail to sustain the nominations of 
the same for otllce, shall be dealt with in the following manner, viz : — A mem- 
ber of the Order who shall merely fail to vote for the candidate of the Order, 
without voting for any one else, shall, for the first offence, be reprimanded by 
the President, in the presence of his Council ; and for the second offence, shall be 
expelled. Those voting against the candidates of the Order, or who allow them- 
selves to be run as opposition candidates against the same, shall be expelled. 
Members of the Legislature who shall refuse to support the nominees of the 
State Council, for offices to be filled by the Greneral Assembly, shall be reported 
by the President of the State Council to the Subordinate Council to which such 
member may belong, to be dealt with ; provided, however, that in all these 
cases here provided for, every such recusant member shall, before being dealt 
with, be duly notified to appear before the Council, and be heard in defence — 
and if three-fourths of the Council then present, shall suppose that the recu- 
sant member has acted ignorantly, or from a want of a full appreciation of his 
obligation, the Council may, by a vote of three-fourthsj excuse him, upon the 
promise that he will not so offend again. 

Sec. 9. — When a member is expelled by any one of the Subordinate Councils, 
the same shall be notified to the President of the State Council, with the name, 
age, and occupation of the person expelled — and the President of the State 
Council shall immediately notify every Subordinate Council in the State. The 
person so expelled to be thus published as a perjurer and traitor, unworthy the 
notice or regard of good men : and the President of the State Council shall 
keep on hand blank notices printed, for immediate use. 

Article IX. 

In the decision of all disputed questions that may arise in the State Council, 
the vote shall be taken per capita, unless a call for a division by counties is se- 
conded by one-fourth of the members "present — in which case the vote shall be 
taken by counties, a majority of the delegates from the Subordinate Council or 
Councils in each county represented, casting as many votes as the said county is 
entitled to members in the House of Commons of the State Legislature. In 
the decision of all questions, the vote of the majority shall prevail. This me- 
thod of voting shall equally apply in the election of officers of the State Coun- 
cil, and to nominations for political office or place. 

Article X. 

Sec. 1. — For the entire work of the Order, including Ritual, the Constitution 
of the National Council, the Constitution of the State Council, and the Consti- 
tutions for Subordinate Councils, each Subordinate Council shall pay the sum 



479 

of five dollars ; and for every dispensation and charter for opening Councils, the 
applicants therefor shall pay the sum of three dollars. 

gee. 2. — Each Subordinate Council shall pay an annual contribution of 25 
cents for each member under its jurisdiction, one half to be paid into the Trea- 
sury of the State Council semi-annually, to be paid over by the Secretary to the 
Treasurer of the State Council; provided, however, that the Subordinate Coun- 
cils may exempt from the payment of this contribution, such of its members 
as they may suppose it vfould bear heavily upon. 

Article XL 

No alteration or amendment of this Constitution shall be made, unless pro- 
posed in writing and signed by at least seven members of the State Council, 
submitted at least one day before its adoption, and afterwards concurred' in by 
two-thirds of the members present. 

OFFICERS OF THE NORTH CAROLINA STATE COUNCIL. 

President, P. F. Pescud, Raleigh. 

Vice-President, John M. Mathews, Elizabeth City. 

Secretary, W. H. Harrison, Raleigh. 

Treasurer, E. L. Harding, Raleigh. 

Marshal, S. E. Phillips, Raleigh. 

Chaplain, Rev. James Reid, Louisburg. 



LYNCHBURG KNOW NOTHING CONVENTION. 

The Lynchburg Convention, as it was termed, to distinguish it from a secret 
authoritative council of the Order, was held on the 19th day of October 1855, 
in commemoration of the crouching of the British lion before the American 
eagle upon the plains of Yorktown. The 19th of October, 22d of February, 
and the 4th day of July, are favorite days with Know Nothings for political as- 
semblies. We would suggest, (should they ever have an occasion to convene 
and deliberate again,) the 24th day of May, as a day in every sense of the word 
suitable. 

This Lynchburg Convention, after several attempts at organization, finally 
appointed as president Capt. Richard G. Morris, of Richmond city. The pres- 
ident on taking the chair, as usual, (even amongst Know Nothings,) returned 
thanks for the honor conferred upon him. After the election of other officers, 
&c., the Convention proceeded to business. 

The secretary, Mr. Gilman, of Wheeling, then called over the names of the 
counties; the delegates present answering for their respective counties. When 
the list was concluded, the counties, towns and cities of the State represented 
were forfij-two ; — Dr. Caldwell, a travelling dentist, representing ten counties. 
A committee was appointed by the president to report resolutions for the adop- 
tion of the body ; Mr. A. Judson Crane, of Richmond, being chairman. After 
the committee had retired and concocted their resolutions, they were brought 



480 

before the Convention for adoption. These resolutions embodied a complete 
and final surrender of the main issues this party had made in the State of Vir- 
ginia, but five months previous. The resolutions passed by this Convention 
counseled the abandonment of the ceremonies of initiation, the oaths, signs, 
secrets and passwords. And, finally, Mr. Samuel G. Staples, ffova near the 
Ball mountains of Patrick, introduced a resolution, which was carried, invi- 
ting all good and true men into their fold who professed to owe no temporal al- 
legiance to any foreign power. This was certainly a virtual surrender of the 
Catholic test. The Catholic, as well as all other foreigners, cannot become citi- 
zens of this nation until they do renounce all allegiance to all foreign powers, 
potentates, kings, deys, sultans, popes, czars and emperors. But before the 24th 
day of'May 1855, in Virginia, no member of the Catholic church, or who had 
Catholic parents, or worse than all, who had a Catholic wife, could be entitled 
to any of the privileges of the native born. There was only one dissenting 
voice to the resolutions adopted ; and that was the " Lone Star," Mr. Woodfin, 
of the county of Buckingham. He considered the resolutions a complete 
surrender of the principles of the " A^nerican Parti/." But the Convention 
paid but little attention to the gentleman from Buckingham, he being unfortu- 
nately a renegade democrat. 

After the deliberations of the day were over, the Convention adjourned to 
Friends' warehouse to listen to the patriotic appeals of distinguished orators. 
Mr. Thomas Stanhope Flournoy discoursed the audience for about three hours 
upon the so-called principles of the " Amrrica7i Parf^." Mr. A. Judson 
Crane, of the Rulimond congressional district, was then loudly called for, but ex- 
cused himself on account of indisposition. Then came Mr. John D. Imboden, 
of Augusta. Mr. Nathaniel C. Claiborne, of Franklin, was then called for. He 
appeared, and in his peculiar way amused the audience for a little while. 
Then appeared the eloquent but totaVi/ uviyrepared and off-hand orator, Mr. 'Wal- 
ler Staples, of Montgomery. We have read the Hon. Jcre. Clemens's eulogy 
upon Henry Clay, likewise the eulogy of the Hon. John C. Breckenridge, 
and also William Wirt's upon Thomas Jeiferson and John Adams, but Mr. 
Staples' off-hand .speech before that Convention surpasoed and totally eclipsed 
anything that we, in the most extravagant mood of imagination, could pos- 
sibly conceive of. If the Know Nothing party had not just abolished 
their ceremonies of initiation, &c., we should have looked out for a council as 
soon as the oration was over. It is said that John Hampden Pleasants attemp- 
ted to take down in short hand the speech of John Kandolph, of Pioanoke, in 
the delivery of his eloquent Philippic against the administration of John Q, 
Adams, but the eloquence, pathos and satire of the orator completely entranced 
him. It was so on this occasion. A reporter from the New York Herald was 
present, but after hearing a few sentences from the gentleman of Montgomery, 
and seeing his an?itomical mien, he threw himself back and appeared (as dtd 
the whole audience) perfectly enraptured and bewildered. Virginia has had her 
Henrys, her Randolphs, her Morrisses, and gave birth to a Clay, but still she 
has her Staples. The last orator upon the stand was Dr. Withers, of Campbell. 
He, in his remarks, was very timely and sensible, and finally wound up the bail 



481 

by telling Ins fellow orators that be was fearful \bat all their speaking was like 
a gentleman be once beard of, who was very much engaged at breakfast one 
morning, eating some boiled eggs and reading the morning's paper; when bis 
mind was abstracted from bis plate to bis paper, still continuing to devour 
the eggs, to his great surprise, just as he swallowed, be heard a chicken chirp. 
He very cosily continued to read, but at the same time carelessly remarked to 
the unfortunate chicken, that he chirped a little too late ! He feared that all 
their speaking was a little too late. The doctor is decidedly a man of observa- 
tion, forecast and good sense. 

Thus concluded this grand but futile rally of the remnants, fragments, de- 
feated candidates for the Board of Public Works, Congress, Senates, Legisla- 
ture, &c. &c. These were the last funeral obsequies performed by the followers 
and admirers of poor Sam since the 24i'/t of May. " The way of the trangres- 
sor is bard." — Proverbs. We will here insert the proceedings and resolutions 
of this Convention, as they appeared in the Richmond Whig. 



[Correspondence of the Dispatch.] 

KNOW NOTHING CONVENTION. 

ATFERNOON SESSION — FIRST DAY. 

Lynchburg, Oct. 19. 

The Convention met in the afternoon, and Mr. Staples, of Patrick, from the 
Committee to report Permanent offieers for the Convention, reported the follow- 
ing names : 

President— Capt. Ilichard G. Morris, of Pticbraond. 

Vice Presidents — J. D. Imboden, of Augusta ; Wm. Collins, of Halifax ; 
John T. Anderson, Botetourt; Dr. Patterson, Amherst; Maurice Langhorne, 
Lynchburg ; A. J. Crane, Richmond ; Dr. Caldwell, Greenbrier. 

Secretaries — Wm. Seraple, Richtnoud ; W. Oilman, Wheeling ; Robt. Ridg- 
way, Richmond; J. McDunald, Lynchburg; S. T. Peters, Lynchburg ; Mr. 
Duke, Floyd; -J. C Shields, Lynchburg. 

Mr. R. G. Morris rose and returned thanks for the honor conferred on him. 
It had been so long since he bad been connected with a legislative body, that 
be would ask the Convention to bear with him in the discharge of the duties of 
the chair. They bad assembled upon the discharge of an important duty, and 
it was important that they should exercise forbearance and a compromising 
spirit. He thought the American party the only hope for saving the Union. 
All that remained of the old parties at the North, save the Hard Shells and 
Silver Greys, had become abolitionized, and declared that no more Slave States 
should enter the Union. If they succeed, disunion will be the result. A dark 
cloud hovered over the Union, and the thunder of abolitionism can be heard 
roaring around us. It was time for true patriots to rally around our beloved 
Union, and save it from the ruin consequent on the efibrts of fanaticism. 

Mr. Imboden moved that the Secretary call over the counties of the State,, 
and that the names of the delegates from them should be recorded. 

The Secretary called over the list, and the following counties were shown to 
be represented : Albemarle, Alleghany, Amherst, Appomattox, Augusta, Bed- 
ford, Botetourt, Braxton, Buckingham, Campbell, Caroline, Charlotte, Cumber- 
31 



482 

laBrl, Elizabeth City, •Floyd, Franklin, Fayette, Fluvanna, Gloucester, Green- 
brier, Giles, Halifax, Henrico, Kanawha, Lewis, Monroe, Montgomery, Nicho- 
las, Nelson, Nottoway, Ohio, Pocahontas, Pulaski, Patrick, Pittsylvania, Prince 
Edward, Randolph, lioanoke, Rockbridge, Wythe, Richmond City, Lynchburg, 
Wheeling. 

Oa motion of Mr. Ridgway, all persons who belonged to or sympathized 
■with the American party, were invited to record their names as delegates from 
the counties from which they came. 

Mr. Imbodeu moved the appointment of a committee of thirteen to prepare 
business for the action of the convention ; and nominated Mr. A. J. Crane as 
chairman of the same. 

The President appointed the following gentlemen to constitute the commit- 
tee : A. J. Crane, Richmond; J. D. Imboden, Augusta; Wm. Burwell, Bed- 
ford ; Dr. Payne, Lynchburg ; Walter Staples, Montgomery ; John Mosby, 
Elizabeth City ; P. Rolling, Prince Edward ; Dr. Charles Cocke, Albemarle ; 
Col. J. D. Davis, Amherst; A. D. Mitchell, Henrico; John Gilmer, Pittsyl- 
vania; R. C. McClure, Rockbridge. 

On motion of Mr. Ridgway, the convention then adjourned until 7 o'clock, 
P. M. 

JSflglit Session. — The convention re-opened to-night, at 7, P. M. 

Mr. Crane, chairman of the bommittee to report business for the convention, 
made the following partial report : 

Resolved, That this convention adopt the Philadelphia Platform, with the 
following exposition of the 8th section : 

Resolved, That the 8th Section of the Philadelphia platform is not intended, 
in the opinion of this convention, to exclude any citizen from public station, on 
account of his religious faith, but only such as may have reserved a paramount 
allegiance to a foreign potentate. 

The convention the'n adjourned until next day, 9 A. M. 

TROCEEDINGS OF THE SECOND DAY. 

L)/ncMmrg, Oct. 20l.h, 12 M. 

The convention re-assembled this morning, and proceeded to the business be- 
fore them. 

On motion of Mr. J. T. Anderson, the two resolutions in the partial report 
of the committee submitted last night, were separated and made to read as fol- 
lows : 

Resolved, That this convention adopt the Philadelphia platform. 

Resolved, That the 8th section of the Philadelphia platform is not intended, 
in the opinion of this Convention, to exclude any citizen from political station 
ou account of his religious faith, but only such as may have reserved para- 
mount allegiance to a foreign potentate. 

Mr. Crane, from the Committee to prepare Resolutions, reported in full, as 
follows : 

Resolved, That in the 12th section of the Philadelphia platform we recog- 
nize a true national and constitutional adjustment of the vexed question of 
slavery, and we rjcdge the American party of Virginia to an unyielding resist- 
ance to any change or modification, in substance or spirit, of that section. 

Resolved, That the wholesale proscription recommended by the organs of the 
Democratic party of this State, of more than half of the native citizens of Vir- 
ginia, deserves the most decided reprobation of every honest and patriotic citi- 
zen ; that the hypocritical reason assigned for this proscription, viz : the false 
charge of proscription against the American party, is an insult to an intelligent 
people J that such a charge comes with a bad grace from a party who have al- 



483 

ways proscribed their political opponents, and wbo disfrancbised nearly one half 
of the freemen of this State by a fraudulent system of legislative gerrymander- 
ing unparalleled in party legislation. 

llesolved, That the open interference of the Federal Government in the re- 
cent elections of Virginia deserves the indignant reprobation of every good 
citizen. 

Resolved, That in vindication of public morality and of the necessity for the 
formation of a new party, we hereby recommend a rigid investigation of the 
manner in which official trusts have been discharged by the Federal and State 
Governments, and a publication of all facts developed thereby. 

Resolved, That in the opinion of this Convention, the nominations of the 
American party, for President and Vice President of the United States, should 
be postponed to a period not later than the 1st of June. 

Resolved, That this committee recommend to the convention, the appoint- 
ment of a committee of three, whose duty it shall be to prepare and publish an 
address to the people of Virginia, setting forth the principles of the American 
party, in accordance with the principles of the platform and the resolutions 
adopted by the Convention at their present session. 

(Under this resolution the President appointed Messrs. "Wm. M. Burwell, A. 
J. Crane and Robert Ridgway. On motion the President was added to the 
committee.) 

Resolved, That, in the judgment of this convention, all ceremonies of initia- 
tion into the American party be discontinued, and all obligations of secrecy re- 
moved — that its meeting should be open and public, and its proceedings con- 
ducted in accordance with the usages of political bodies — and we invite the co- 
operation of all good men who approve the principles and objects of the party. 

All of the resolutions reported by the committee were adopted without dis- 
cussion save the last one, which was strongly opposed by Mr. D. J. Woodfin of 
Buckingbam, who contended that the party had already yielded too much to 
outside influence. Should the ban of secrecy be removed, the cry would go 
forth that the order had changed into an open Whig organization — a cry which 
had been often sounded during the last canvass. He said that in the last elec- 
tion there were no withdrawals until the party commenced yielding to outside 
influence, and relaxing their strict secrecy. Then it was that their adversaries 
found out who were members of the organization, and commenced operating 
upon them. From that time withdrawals commenced. 

The resolution was supported by Messrs. Wm. M. Burwell, of Bedford ; J. 
T. Anderson, of Botetourt ; S. G. Staples, of Patrick ; W. R. Staples, of Mont- 
gomery ; and J. D. Imboden, of Augusta. The principal arguments advanced 
were the utter uselessness of secrecy and the great efforts made by the Democ- 
racy in the last campaign to bring the order into discredit on account of it. The 
principles of the party had not been attacked, and instead, the enemy had ridi- 
culed and condemned the ceremonies, secrecy, &c., of the order. 

Mr. W. T. Sutherlin, of Danville, offered the following resolution as a sub- 
stitute for that of the committee : 

Resolved, That this Convention recommend to the American party of Virgi- 
nia an open, thorough and complete organization in each county in the State. 

Mr. S. afterwards withdrew the resolution as an amendment to that of the 
committee, and offered it as a distinct resolution, in which torm it was adopted. 

The vote was then taken on the committee's resolution, and it was adopted 
without a dissenting voice. 

Mr. Imboden, of Augusta, offered the following resolution : 

Resolved, That this Convention recommend to the American Party of Vir- 
ginia to hold a Convention in the city of Richmond on the 14th of January 
next. 



484 

As a substitute for the above, which met with some opposition, Mr. Imboden 
offered a resolution calling au American Mass Meeting in the city of Kichraond, 
on the 31st inst., which was adopted. 

Mr. Staples of Patrick, offered the following resolution, which was adopted : 

Resolved, That this Convention recommend the holding of Conventions in 
each Congressional District, for the purpose of sending delegates to the National 
Convention, and that three delegates be sent from said Congressional Districts 
with power to cast such vote only as may be prescribed by the National Con- 
vention. 

Dr. Patterson of Amherst, offered a resolution admitting to public office any 
citizen who shall openly disclaim allegiance to a foreign potentate. 

As the Convention was rapidly breaking up and members leaving, the reso- 
lution was withdrawn. 

After the usual vote of thanks to the officers of the Convention, and to the 
citiaens of Lynchburg, for their hospitality, the Convention adjourned sine die. 



THE NATIONALITY OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY. 

In the States of Ohio and Connecticut, the Whig and Know Nothing 
parties have been thoroughly abolitionized, and their elections and declarations, 
their acts and their words, render the fact unquestionable. They are waging a 
war of exterminatioa on slavery, in and out of Congress at this time. 

In those two States, where the hostility to slavery is stronger than in any 
other, either of the western or New England States, the Democracy are not 
merely conservative on that question, they are more — they are the defenders of 
the South and her peculiar institution, as the following resolutions will prove. 

We copy in exienso the . following resolutions of the late Democratic State 
Convention. of Connecticut: 

DEMOCRATIC STATE CONVENTION OF CONNECTICUT. 

The Hartford Times, of the 15th instant, contains a full report of the pro- 
ceedings of the Democratic State Convention of Connecticut, which was held at 
New Haven on the preceding day. It was one of the largest delegated conven- 
tions ever held in Connecticut. Our readers have already been advised of the 
of the nominations of State officers by this convention. The following resolu- 
tions, which were unanimously adopted, are worthy of extensive circulation. 
They breathe the right spirit, and admirably meet all the issues raised by the 
enemies of the Democratic party : 

''Resolved, That the strict adherence of the President of the United States 
to those great principles of constitutional government which have received the 
entire sanction of the democracy of the Union, and the checks which he has 
interposed upon legislation at war with those principles by his vetoes of the 
insane land bill, and the river and harbor bill, assure us that, under his admin- 
istration, the country will be secure from any inroads upon that constitution 
which is the written bond uniting thirty-one sovereign States, and on the strict 
construction of which depends the harmonious existence of our confederated 
system. 



485 

Revived, That tbc power of Congress over the Territories of the U. States 
should be ouly employed to such au extent as the necessities of the case may 
require, and for the equal benefit of all the parties to the federal compact, and 
that when any Territory, having the requisite number of inhabitants, applies 
for admission into the Union as a sovereign State, she must, to be received as a 
co-equal member of the family of States, be admitted with such constitution as 
her people may ordain, provided said constitution does not conflict with the 
organic law of the confederacy. 

^.Resohed, That those just and equitable laws providing for the naturaliza- 
tion of those born in other lands, established in accordance with the principles 
of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and continued to this day 
without any interruption, save that caused by the bigoted federalists under the 
administration of John Adams, have contributed to the growth of this republic 
and the fraternization of its inhabitants ; and that these laws are essentially the 
part of that wise American policy which, founded on a comprehensive and phi- 
lanthropic basis, has signalized our beloved country as the home of the exile 
and oppressed, and will make her as renowned for her power and greatness as 
she is distinguished for her freedom and enterprise. 

Resolved, That, in order to recognise in the most solemn form the .princi- 
ples of religious freedom, the constitution of the United States doth ordain that 
'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohib- 
iting the free exercise thereof,' and that the various States have, almost without 
exception, incorporated some distinct acknowledgment of religious liberty into 
their several constitutions, and that thus religious freedom has become, by the 
action of the sovereign States and of the general government, whose powers are 
derived from those States, a great American principle. 

Resolved, That political parties organized with the view of shutting out from 
all posts of political trust the members of any religious denomination, do vir- 
tually condemn that system of religious liberty which is American in its char- 
acter, beneficent in its conception, and which has greatly promoted the harmo- 
ny and happiness of the people ; and that all political organizations founded on 
hatred of religious creed or prejudice of birth are alien to the great ideas of 
American liberty and American progress, and deserve the condemnation of 
American freemen." 

At a convention of the Democratic party in Ohio, held at Dayton, Oct. 29th, 
1855, after eloquent addresses from several prominent Democrats in favor of 
the Kansas Nebraska act : 

" Capt. E. A. King, from the committee on resolutions, reported the follow- 
ing, which were received severally with loud applause, and adopted without a 
dissenting voice. 

" Whereas : The formal reorganization and consolidation of tbe old Abolition 
party of the North, under the name of " Republican party," into an avowed 
northern faction bounded by a geographical line, and pledged to an unrelenting 
warfare, even to the destruction of the Constitution and the sundering of the 
Union, upon the domestic institutions of the people of all the States lying 
south of that line, demands of the only National party now in existence, the 
Democracy of the United States, but especially of that of the North, that 
laying aside old issues and controversies, they should come up as one man to 
the full measure of the exigencies which press upon us, and boldly meet the 
new and living questions of the day : 

" Therefore, we a portion of the Democracy of Ohio and the North, in public 
meeting assembled, do resolve and declare : — 



486 

" Reaolved, That we congratulate the people of the United States, on the fi- 
nal inauguration of the grand scheme of domestic policy for which the Demo- 
cratic party of the Union so many years contended, and the consequent pros- 
perity, which, under the auspices of that party, has distinguished every sec- 
tion of the country, vindicating at once the sound doctrine and policy of 
that party, and the intelligence, patriotism, and discriminating justice of the 
American people. 

Resolved, That the powers of the Federal Government, are derived solely 
from the constitutional compact to which the several States are parties : that 
these are limited by the plain sense and intention of the instrument consititu- 
ting that compact; that the grants of power made in that instrument, ought to 
be strictly construed by all the departments and agents of the government : 
that all powers not expressly granted or necessarily implied, are expressly re- 
served to the States respectively, or to the people : that it is inexpedient and 
dangerous to exercise powers of doubtful constitutionality. 

Resolved, That in delegating a portion of their powers to be exercised by 
the Federal government, the States retained, severally, the exclusive and sole 
right over their own domestic institutions and police, and are alone responsible 
for them ; and that any intermeddling of any one or more States, or of a com- 
bination of their citizens, with the domestic institutions and police of the others 
on any ground or under any pretext whatever, political, moral, or religious, 
"with a view to their alteration or subversion, is an assumption of superiority, 
not warranted by the Constitution, insulting to the States interfered with, ten- 
ding to endanger their domestic peace and tranquility, subversive of the objects 
for which the Constitution was framed, and by necessary consequence, tending 
to weaken and destroy the Union itself. 

Resolved, That domestic slavery as it exists in the southern States of this 
Union, comprises an important part of their domestic institutions inherited from 
their ancestors, and existing at the adoption of the Constitution, by which it is 
recognized as constituting an essential element in the distribution of its powers 
among the States ; and that no change of opinion or feeling on the part of the 
other States of the Union in relation to it, can justify them or their citizens in 
open and systematic attacks thereon with a view to its overthrow ; and that all 
such attacks are in manifest violation of the mutual and solemn pledge to pro- 
tect and defend each other, given by the States respectively on entering into 
the constitutional compact which formed the Union, and as such is a manifest 
breach of faith and a violation of the most solemn obligations, moral and reli- 
gious. 

Resolved, That Congress has no power, under the Constitution, to interfere 
with or control the domestic institutions of the several States ; and that such 
States are the sole and proper judges of everything appertaining to their own 
affairs, not prohibited by the Constitution ; and that all efforts of Abolitionists, 
or others, by whatever name known, made to induce Congress to interfere with 
questions of slavery, or to take incipient steps in relation thereto, whether for 
the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, or the Territories, or its 
prohibition therein, or for the interdiction of the coastwise or inter-state slave 
trade, or the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law, or of the Kansas Nebraska act, 
are calculated to lead to the most alarming and dangerous consequences ; and that 
all such efforts have an inevitable tendency to diminish the happiness of the 
people and endanger the stability and permanency of the Union, and ought not 
to be countenanced by any friend of our political institutions. 

Resolved, That regarding these compromises of the Constitution, solemnly 
entered into by its founders, as wise and necessary provisions, and such as ought 
neither to be disregarded nor tampered with, we are for the Constitution as it 
is, and the Union as it is ; and that we will preserve, maintain and defend both 
at every hazard, observing with scrupulous and uncalculating fidelity, every 



487 

article, requirement and compromise of the constitutional compact between these 
States, to the letter and iu its utmost spirit, and recognizing no " higher law" 
between wliich and the constitution we know of any conflict. 

Rcwhal, That the Constitution was " the result of a spirit of amity, and of 
th^t mutual deference and concession which the peculiarities of our political 
situation rendered indispensable j" and that by amity, conciliation and compro- 
mise alone can it and the Union which it established, be preserved : and that it 
is the duty of all good citizens to frown indignantly upon every attempt where- 
soever and by whomsoever made, to array one section of the Union against the 
other, to foment jealousies or heart burnings between them by systematic and 
organized misrepresentation, denunciation and calumny, and thereby to render 
alien in feeling and affection the inheritors of so noble a common patrimony, 
purchased by our fathers at so great expense of blood of treasure. 

Resolved, That the Constitution confers no power upon Congress to establish 
or prohibit slavery in the Territories of the United States : that these Territo- 
ries arc the common property of the States in their federal capacity, purchased 
by the common blood and treasure of all the States : and that the people of 
each and every State, have the right to an equal participation in every respect, 
in the use of these Territories in common, without interference by Congress. 

Resolved, That the right of the people of each particular State and Territory 
to establish their own constitution or form of government; to choose and regu- 
late their own domestic institutions of every kind, and to legislate for themselves' 
is a fundamental principle of all free government ; that it is the self same right 
to secure which our ancestors waged the war of the revolution ; a right lying at 
the very foundation of all our free institutions, recognized in the Declaration of 
Independence, and established and secured by the Constitution of the United 
States ; and we hereby endorse and reaffirm this 7wio disputed principle, as it is 
embodied in the Acts for the organization of Utah and New Mexico in 1850, 
and of Kansas and Nebraska in 1854. 

Resolved further. That the foregoing right is no otherwise limited or restricted 
by the Constitution of the United States, except so far as the constitution of a ^ 
State applying for admission into the Union is required to be "republican," or 
representative in form ; a limitation in no wise aflfected by the domestic institu- 
tion of slavery ; and that therefore all efforts to exclude a State from such ad- 
mission, dn the ground that her constitution or laws sanction slaveholding, are 
violations alike of sound democratic principles and of the Constitution of the 
Union. 

Resolved, That the introduction of moral or religious questions into the poli- 
tical controversies and issues of the day, is a wide departure from the ancient 
principles and sound policy of the country ; at war with the true interests of 
the people, corrupting alike to morals, religion and politics, and of most perni- 
nicious and dangerous tendency; and that therefore we are uncompromisingly 
opposed to the provisions of the " Maine Liquor Law," so called, the principles 
of the " Order of Know Nothings," and the fanaticisms and wicked and traito- 
rous purposes of Abolitionism." 



A SPEAKER ELECTED. 

The protracted struggle for the speakership was brought to a close last eve- 
ning by the election of Hon. N. P. Banks. Nine full weeks were consumed 
before this result was attained, and it was finally brought about by the adoption 
of the plurality rule. Although it is absolutely certain that there is a majori- 
ty of the representatives in the House who agree with Mr. Banks on the sec- 
tional questions which now agitate the country, yet it has been demonstrated, 



488 

again and again, that a portion of Lis own political friends would never agree 
to vote for him for Speaker, and hence that he could never be elec.ted by a ma- 
jority vote. 

A3 we have remarked, the contest was finally terminated under the operation 
of the plurality rule. The votes taken during several days past had indicated 
that a Speaker could only be chosen by resorting to that rule. There was a 
strong repugnance amongst the national members to its adoption, more especially 
after the revolting declaration of Mr. Banks as to the test of superiority in the 
races. The southern Know Nothings manifested a determination against cast- 
ing their votes for the democratic nominees not less persistent than their refusal 
, to vote for Mr. l^anks. Oa Friday, however, propositions were made by Demo- 
crats to which the southern Know Nothings indicated a disposition to accede — 
the one proposing Mr. Oliver, an old-line Whig, and the other Mr. Aiken, a 
National Democrat, for Speaker. The votes on these propositions, compared 
•with that given on the same day on a resolution declaring Mr. Banks the 
Speaker, showed so little difference that it was exceedingly doubtful what would 
be the result upon the adoption of the plurality rule. At this point Mr. Smith, 
of Tennessee, believing that the chances of Mr. Aiken were at least equal to 
those of Mr. Banks, brought forward a resolution for the plurality rule. Mr. 
Orr immediately withdrew unconditionally his name as the democratic nominee, 
and the resolution was adopted. The result was, as we have stated, the elec- 
tion of Mr. Banks by a plurality of three votes — Mr. Banks receiving 103 
votes, and Mr. Aiken 100 — sis national Americans throwing their votes on Mr. 
Fuller, and four Republicans throwing theirs on Mr. L. D. Campbell. It is 
apparent that a perfect union of the national members (the four Republicans 
voting for Mr. Campbell) would have elected Mr. Aiken by a plurality of three. 
Thus has ended the most extraordinary struggle that has ever occurred. Al- 
though the result is one which every national man will regret, yet, as the 
Republicans have a known majority [n the House, and therefore were entitled 
to the Speaker, there is reason for acquiescing, inasmuch as it enables the ma- 
chinery of government once more to move on. 

Saturday, Fehniary 2, 1856. 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 
« 

The House met at 12, m. 

Prayer by the Rev. Mr. Cummins. 

The journal of yesterday was read and approved. 

The Clerk stated that the first business in order was the resolution submitted 
by the gentleman from Kentucky, [Mr. Talbott,] as follows: 

Hesolvcd, That the Hon. Alexander H. Stephens be, and he is hereby de- 
clared Speaker of the House of Representatives for the o4:th Congress. 

Mr. Talbott had offered the resolution without having any conference with 
the honorable gentleman whose name was contained in it. He had hoped that 
it would reconcile all the discordant elements of the House, and bring about an 
organization. He rose for the purpose of withdrawing the resolution at the re- 
quest of the gentleman from Georgia. 

Mr. Smith, of Tennessee, stated that he had heretofore voted against the 
plurality rule ; but the vote of yesterday indicating that there was at least the 
chance of the election of a man of sound national principles under its opera- 
tion, he therefore offered the following resolution, and called for the previous 
question : 

Resolved, That the House will proceed immediately to the election of a 
Speaker viva voce ; and if, after the roll shall have been called three times, no 
member shall have received a majority of the whole number of votes, the roll 



489 

shall again be culled, and the nioinbcr who shall then receive the largest num- 
ber of votes^ provided it be a majority of a quorum, shall be duly declared 
Speaker of the House of Representatives of the Thirty-fourth Congress. 

Mr. Goode, of Virginia, moved to lay the resolutiuu on the table; which 
motion was not agreed to — yeas 104, nays 114. 

The previous question was seconded, and the main question was ordered to be 
how put. 

The question was taken, and the resolution was adopted — yeas 113, nays 
104 — as follows : 

Yeas — Messrs. Albright, Allison, Ball, Banks, Barbour, Barclay, Henry 
Bennett, Benson, Billingburst, Bingham, Bishop, Bliss, Bradsliaw, Brenton, 
Buffington, Burlingame, James IT. Campbell, CliafFee, Bayard Clark, Ezra 
Clark,"Clawson, Ciiugman, Colfax, Comins, Covoke, Cragin, Cumback, Damrell, 
Timothy Davis, Day,^Dean, De Witt, Dick, Dickson, Dodd, Darfee, E lie, Flag- 
ler, Gafloway, Giddings, Gilbert, Granger, Grow, Robert B. Hall, Harlan, Her- 
bert, Hickman, Holloway, Thomas R. Horton, Howard, Jewett, Kelley, Kel- 
sey, 'King, Knapp, Knight, Knowlton, Knox, Kunkel, Leiter, Mace, Matteson, 
McCarty/Mcacham, Killian iNliller, Morgan, M^:rrill, Mott, Murray, Nichols, 
Norton, Andrew Oliver, Parker, Pcarce, Pclton, Pennington, Perry, Pettit, 
Pike, Pringle, Purviance, Ritchie, Bobbins, Roberts, Robison, Sabin, Sage, 
Sapp, Sherman, Simmons, Samuel A. Smith, Spinner, Stanton, Stranahan, Tap- 
pan, Thorington, Thurston, Todd, Trafton, Tyson, Wade, Walbridge, Waldron, 
C. C. Washburne, E. B. Washburne, Israel Washburn, Watson, Welch, Wells, 
Williams, Wood, Woodruff, and Woodworth — 113. • 

Nays — Messrs. Aiken, Allen, Barksdale, Bell, Heudley S. Bennett, Bocock, 
Bowie, Boyce, Branch, Brooks, Broom, Burnett, Cadwalador, John 1*. Camp- 
bell, Lewis D. Campbell, Carlile, Caruthers, Caskie, Howell Cobb, W. R. W. 
Cobb, Cox, Crawford, Davidson, H. Winter Davis, Denver, Dowdell, Dunn, 
Edmundson, Elliott, English, Etheridge, Eustis, Evans, Faulkner, Florence, 
Foster, H. M. Fuller, T. J. D. P'uUer, Goode, Greenwood, Augustus Hall, J. 
M. Harris, S. W. Harris, T. L. Harris, Harrison, Hoffman, Houston, George 
W. Jones, J. Glancy Jones, Keitt, Kennett, Kidwell, Lake, Letcher, Lindley, 
Lumpkin, A. K. Marshall, Humphrey Marshall, S. S. Marshall, Maxwell, Mc- 
MuUen, McQueen, Smith Miller, Millson, Millward, Moore, Mordeeai Oliver, 
Orr, Paine, Peck, Phelps, Porter, Powell, Puryear, Quitman, Ready, Ricaud, 
Rivers, Ruffin, Rust, Sandidge, Savage, Scott, Shorter, William Smith, William 
R. Smith, Sneed, Stephens, Stewart, Swope, Talbott, Trippe, Underwood, Vail, 
Valk, Walker, ^Varner, Watkins, Wheeler, Whitney, Winslow, D. B. Wright, 
J. V. Wright, and Zollicoffcr — 104. 

[The announcement was applauded in the galleries.] 

Mr. Orr, of South Carolina, said that his name had been put in nomination 
some two weeks ago by the Democratic party for the speakership, and though 
very many ballots had taken place since that time, and although the members 
of that party supposed that by changing their nominee they miglit increase and 
strengthen them, yet the result had shown that they were mistaken in the con- 
clusion to which they arrived. The complimentary vote given yesterday to his 
colloague [Mr. Aiken] rendered it very evident to his mind that that gentleman 
would'be able to concentrate a greater strength than himself, and as he desired 
to see the House organized upon national principles, and in opposition to sec- 
tionalism, he took occasion, after returning his thanks to his party friends for 
their fidelity and confidence in nominating and sustaining him, to withdraw un- 
conditionally his name from the contest. 

Mr. Boyce, of South Carolina, moved to rescind the resolution just adopted. 

Mr. Smith, of Tennessee, moved to lay that motion on the table; which was 
agreed to — yeas 117, nays 101. 

[Applau.se in the galleries. J ♦ 



490 

Cries of " Call the roll." 

Mr. Jones, of Tennessee, moved an adjournment of the House, in order to 
give members an opportunity to confer, that they might cast their -votes under- 
standingly in the great crisis which they were now approaching. The motion 
was not agreed to — yeas 84, nays 133. 

[Applause in the galleries.] 

Cries of '' Call the roll." 

jMr. Walker, of Alabama, moved to rescind the plurality resolution. 

Mr. Clingman raised the point that the motion was not in order, it having 
been decided once already during the day. 

The Clerk thought that the motion was in order, but submitted the question 
to the House, and it was decided that it was not in order — yeas 83, nays 128. 

Mr. Paine, of North Carolina, moved that the House do now adjourn; which 
motion was not agreed to. 

[Applause in the galleries.] 

Mr. Orr said that if the House was to be annoyed by continued applause he 
would have to move that the galleries be cleared. He did not allude to the la- 
dies' gallery. [Laughter.] 

[Cries of " Call the roll."] 

VOTE FOR SPEAKER. 

The House then proceeded to vote for Speaker, it being the first under the 
plurality rule. 

The Clerk called the roll the one hundred and thirtieth time, with the fol- 
lowing result : 

Whole number of votes, 215 ; necessary to a choice, 108 : of these — 
Mr. Banks received, - - 102 

Aiken, ... 93 

H. M. Fuller, ... 14 

L. D. Campbell, - - 4 

Wells, ... 2 

Mr. Richardson, of Illinois, gave notice that he had paired off with Mr. Em- 
rie, otherwise he would have voted for Mr. Aiken. 

There being no choice, the House proceeded to the one hundred and thirty- 
first vote, being the second under the plurality rule, with the following result : 

Whole number of votes, 214 ; necessary to a choice, 108 : of these — 
Mr. Banks received - - 102 

Aiken, ... 93 

H. M. Fuller, - - - 13 

L. D. Campbell, - - 4 

Wells, ... 2 

So there was no choice. 

Mr. Kennett, of Missouri, moved that the House do now adjourn ; which 
motion was not agreed to. [Applause.] 

The House then proceeded to the one hundred and thirty-second vote, being 
the third under the plurality rule, with the following result : 

Whole number of votes, 213 ; necessary to a choice, 107 : of these — 
Mr. Banks received - - 102 

Aiken, ... 93 

H. M. Fuller, ... 13 

L. D. Campbell, - - 4 

Wells, - - - 2 



491 

So there was no choice. , 

Mr. Kust, of Arkansas, moved that the House do now adjourn ; which mo- 
tion was not agreed to — yeas 52, nays 1G2. 

[Shouts of " Call the roll."] 

'Mr. Fuller, of Pennsylvania, desired to repeat what he had said upon two 
former occasions, that he was not, and did not desire to be, a candidate. [Ap- 
plause,] One hundred and thirty ballots would have satisfied hira that he 
was not the choice of a majority of the body, and upon no other terms, upon 
no other conditions, would he consent to take that position. He again returned 
his acknowledgments to the genlemen who had honored him with their sup- 
port, and he requested them to cast their suffrages for a better and abler man. 

During the call of the roll on the last ballot the following explanations were 
made. 

Mr. Barclay, of Pennsylvania, said that his votes stood on the record, and 
he saw no reason why he should change them. He had been adverse, from the 
first to the last, to anything that looked like a coalition with know nothingism, 
he did not care whether it came from the North or the South. He had on 
three votes this morning cast his votes away, and before he again cast a vote he 
wished to ask the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Aiken] whether he had 
written a letter to the honorable gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. H. Marshall], 
and whether he had made any pledges satisfactory to the Southern wing of the 
National American party ? 

Mr. Rust objected to the gentleman proceeding further. 

Mr. Aiken said that he was not a candidate for the office of Speaker. If hig 
friends saw fit to elect him to that position, he would serve them to the best of 
his ability. [Great applause.] 

Mr. A. K. Marshall, of Kentucky, said that he and those with whom he 
acted had discharged their duty to their party, and it now remained for them to 
discharge it to their country. He voted for Aiken. 

Several other gentlemen made explanations before voting for Aiken. 

The House then proceeded to th(^ one hundred and thirty-third vote for 
Speaker, and the last vote under the plurality rule, with the following result : 
whole number of votes, 214 : of these — 

Mr. Banks received, - - 103 

Aiken, - - - 100 

H. M. Fuller, - - - 6 

L. J). Campbell, - - 4 

^yells, - . - - 1 

The following is the vote in detail : 

lor Mr. BanU. — Messrs. Albright, Allison, Ball, Barbour, Henry Bennett, 
Benson, Billinghurst, Bingham, Bishop, Bliss, Bradshaw, Brenton, Buifington, 
Burlingame, James H. Campbell, Lewis D. Campbell, Chaffee, Ezra Clark, 
Clawson, Colfax, Comins, Covode, Cragin, Cumback, Damrell, Timothy Davis, 
Day, Dean, De Witt, Dick, Dickson, Dodd, Durlee, Edie, Flagler, Galloway, 
Giddings, Gilbert, Granger, Grow, Robert B. Hall, Harlan, Holloway, Thomaa 
R. Horton, Howard, Kelsey, King, Knapp, Knight, Knowlton, Knox, Kun- 
kel, Leiter, Mace, Matteson, McCarty, Meacham, Killian Miller, Morgan, Mor- 
rill, Mott, Murray, Nichols, Norton, Andrew Oliver, Parker, Pearce, Pelton, 
Pennington, Perry, Pettit, Pike, Pringle, Purviance, Ritchie, Bobbins, Roberts, 
Robison, Sabin, Sage, Sapp, Sherman, Simmons, Spinner, Stanton, Stranahan, 
Tappan, Thorington, Thurston, Todd, Trafton, Tyson, Wade, Walbridge, Wal- 
dron, Cadwalader C. Washburne, EUihu B. Washburne, Israel Washburn, 
Watson, Welch, Wood, Woodruff, and Woodworth — 103. 



492 

For Mr. J /7-e?i.— Messrs. Allen, Burksdalle, Bell, Hendley S. Bennett, Bo- 
cock, Bowie, Boyce, Branch, Brooks, Burnett, Cudwaliider, John P. Campbell, 
Carlile, Caruthers, Caskie, Clingman, Howell Cobb, Williamson R. W. Cobb, 
Cox, Crawford, Davidson, Denver, Dowdell, Edraundson, Elliott, English, Ether- 
ridge, Eustis, Evans, Faulkner, Florence, Foster, Thomas J. D. Fuller, Goode, 
Greenwood, Augustus Hall, J. 3Iorrison Harris, Sampson W. Harris, Thomas 
L. Harris, Herbert, Hoffman, Houston, Jewitt, George W. Jones, J. Glancy 
Jones, Keitt, Kelly, Kennett, Kidwell, Lake, Letcher, Lindley, Lumpkin, 
Alexander K. Marshall, Humphrey Marshall, Samuel S. Marshall, Maxwell, 
McMullen, McQueen, Smith Miller, Milson, Mordecai Oliver, Orr, Paine, Peck, 
Phelps, Porter, Powell, Puryear, Quitman, lleade. Ready, Rieaud, Rivers, Ruf- 
fin, Rust, Sandidge, Savage, Shorter, Samuel A. Smith, William Smith, Wm. 
R. Smith, Sueed, Stephens, Stewart, Swope, Talbntt, Trippe, Underwood, Vail, 
AValker, Warner, Watkins, Wells, Wheeler, Williams, Winslow, Daniel B. 
Wright, John V. Wright, and Zollicoffcr— 100. 

For Mr. Fuller. — Messrs. Broom, Clark of New. York, CuUen, Davis of 
Maryland, Millward, and Whitney — 6. 

For Mr. Campbell. — Messrs. Dunn, Harrison, Moore, and Scott — 4. 

For Mr. Wells.— Mr. Hickman. 

Mr. Benson, of Maine, one of the tellers, announced that Nathaniel P. Banks, 
jr., of Massachusetts, was duly elected Speaker. 

Mr. A. K. Marshall raised the question that the Houge itself must declare 
the result, and that the Clerk could neither do so himself nor delegate any one 
to do so. He should be very sorry to see the Clerk depart from that course 
which had hitherto secured him so many friends. 

After some debate on this point, in which Messrs. Rust, Clingman, Cobb, of 
Georgia, Smith of Alabama, Paine of North Carolina, H. Marshall, Campbell 
of Ohio, Herbert, and Stewart participated, and during which Mr. Aiken asked 
permission of the House to conduct the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. 
Banks] to the chair, as the duly elocted Speaker of the House. 

Mr. Clingman offered the following resolution : 

''Resolved, That, by reason of the adoption of the proposition known as the 
plurality resolution, and the votes taken under it, the Hon. X. P. Banks, jr., of 
Massachusetts, has been duly chosen Speaker, and is hereby so declared." 

After some debate, the previous question was called on the resolution, and 
seconded, and ordered to be now put. 

The question was taken, and the resolution was adopted — yeas 156, nays .40 
— as foUuws : 

Yeas— Messrs. Aiken, Albright, Allen, Allison, Ball, Barbour, Barclay, Bell, 
Henry Bennett, Benson, Billinghurst, Bingham, Bishop, Bliss, Bowie, Bradshaw, 
Branch, Brenton, Broom, Buffington, Burlingame, Cadwalader, James H. 
Campbell, Lewis D. Campbell, Chaffee, Bayard Clarke, Ezra Clark, Clawson, 
Clingman, Howell Cobb, Colfax, Comins, Covode, Cox, Cragin, Cullen, Cura- 
back, Damrell, Timothy Davis, Day, Dean, De Witt, Dick, Dickson, Dodd, 
Dunn, Durfee, Edie, Euglish, Etheridge, Evans, Flagler, Florence, Thomas J. 
D. Fuller, Galloway, Giddings, Gilbert, Granger, Grow, Robert B. Hall, Har- 
Ian, J. Morrison Harris, Sampson W. Harris, Harrison, Herbert, Hickman, 
Hoffman, HoUoway, Thomas R. Horton, Howard, Jewitt, George W. Jones, J. 
Glancy Jones, Kelley, Kelsey, Kennett, King, Knapp, Knight, Knowlton, 
Knox, Kunkel, Leiter, Lumpkin, Mace, Matteson, McCarty, Meacham, Killian 
Miller, Millward, Moore, Morgan, Morrill, Mott, Murray, Nichols, Norton, An- 
drew Oliver, Parker, Pearce, Pelton, Pennington, Perry, Pettit, Pike, Porter, 



• 493 

Pringle, Purviance, Puryoar, Pteade, Heady, Ritchie, Rivers, Robbins, Roberts, 
Robison, Sabin, Sage, Sapp, Scott, Sheriuau, Siiuinoiis, Simuel A. Smith, 
William R. Smith, Spinuer, Stanton, Stephens, Stewart, Sr,ranahan, Talbott, 
Tappan, Thorington, Thurston, Todd, Traftou, Tyson, Underwood, Vail, Wade, 
Walbridge, Waldron, Warner, Cadwalader, C. Washburne, Ellihu R. Wash- 
burne, Israel Washburn, Watkins, NVatson, Welch, Wells, Wheeler, Whitney, 
Williams, Winslow, Wood, Woodruff, and Woodworth — 156. 

Nays — Messrs. Barksdale, Ilendley S. Bennett, Boyce, Burnett, John P. 
Campbell, Carlile, Gaskie, Crawford, Davidson, H. Winter Davis, D,)wdell, 
Edmundson, Elliott, Foster, Goode, Greenwood, Thomas L. Harris, Houston, 
Keitt, Kid well. Lake, Letcher, Alexander K. Marshall, Maxwell, McMulleu, 
McQueen, Mordecai Oliver, Orr, Phelps, Powell, Ruffin, Rust, Sandiilge, Sav- 
age, Shorter, Sneed, Tripne, Walker, Daniel B. Wright, and John V. Wright 
—40. 

The Clerk appointed Messrs. H. M. Fuller, Aiken, and L. D. Campbell to 
conduct Mr. Banks to the chair. 

Mr. Banks, on taking the chair acknowledged the honor done hira in a brief 
and neat speech. 

The usuxl oath of office was then administered to him by Mr. Giddings. 

On motion of Mr. Stanton, of Ohio, the following resolution was unanimously 
adopted : 

" Resolved, That the thanks of this Flouse are eminently due, and are hereby 
tendered, to John W. Forney, Esq., for the distinguished ability, fidelity and 
impartiality with which he has presided over the deliberations of the House of 
Representatives during the arduous and protracted contest for Speaker which has 
just closed." 

On motion of Mr. Cobb, of Georgia, the House, at 7 o'clock, adjourned. 



From Luzerne Union, Jan. 30, 1856. 
HON. HENRY M. FULLER.— HIS SOxMERSET. 

In order to make an answer to the very many letters we have received as to 
the antecedents of Henry M. Fuller, we have collected together to-day, some 
facts connected with that honorable gentleman's antecedents. The gentlemen 
who have written us on this subject, will please take this for an answer as it 
embodies the facts which we have at hand. Here, in this district, no man will 
be found, can be found, who has any regard for truth, that will pretend to say 
that the gentleman was ever anything else than an Abolitionist, and as such 
received the hearty support of the rankest of them. A Whig, a Free Soiler 
an Abolitionist, a Wilraot Proviso man, a Know Nothing — this is tjc history 
of the gentleman's political career. He never pretended that he was anythino' 
else, till he bid for the Speakership. To gain this, he did not merely repudiate 
his old faith, and turn his back on his old friends and old principles, but he de- 
nied that he was one of them, and was elected on their platform. Not only a 
change of faith, which might under some circumstances be justified, but a de- 
nial that he ever advocated such a faith as his friends always claimed for him. 

A correspondent of the New Tork Times, of the 19th of January, instant 
holds this language : 



494 

« An(i-Nehras7ca did not Elect him. — Mr. Fuller, of Pennsylvania, became 
restive in the debate to-day, and distinctly denied that he was elected by the 
Anti-Nebraska sentiment of his district. Mark this enunciation, Anti-Nebraska 
men of Pennsylvania, and take care that when you nominate again, you make 
the fetters of principle at least strong enough to be understood by the candi- 
date." 

" He denied that he was elected by the Anti-Nebraska sentiment of his dis- 
trict !!!! " Can this be possible ? Can it be, that a man in his senses could 
litter such a palpable, open, and bare-faced falsehood ? He " not elected by 
the Anti-Nebraska sentiment ! " When his friends justified him on the ground 
that he had a right to change his views, we thought they went far in the deed 
of character, particularly as they elected him on a pledge to vote to repeal the 
"infamous Nebraska act — to restore the Missouri line;" but what will they 
say now, when their man denies that he was the exponent of their views ? 
"VVhat can they say ? Nothing — absolutely nothing. With their fingers in 
their mouths, they are silent ! But it is a silence that is ominous. It is a si- 
lence that precedes the storm and the whirlwind, and so the honorable gentle- 
man will find it, if he ever enters the political track again. We spoke of his 
friend^ justifying him for " a change of opinion " — we mean his personal po- 
litical friends. The masses of the old line who gave him their support, whis- 
per " treason," and call to mind a worthy old gentleman who betrayed his 
master. 

But let us see what the issue was before the canvass, which resulted in the 
gentleman's election. The Record of the Times, of this place, the organ of 
Mr. Fuller, knows full well what the issue was, and that we may not be mis- 
taken we will quote from that paper, and see how this matter was understood 
at the time. But in the first place, what was the Democratic issue ? We will 
see the affirmative first. 

On the 12th of September, 1854, the Democratic conferees of the counties 
composing the district, met and put in nomination Col. Wright, for Congress. 
To show the platform they made for him, we copy from this paper of the 13th 
September, 1854. The resolutions were drawn by the vigorous pen of the late 
Samuel P. Ceilings, Esq., who recently died in Tangiers, at the time a United 
States Consul. 

"Resolved, That in the largo intelligence, generous impulses, and frank and 
cordial character of their nominee for Congress, the Democracy have a guaran- 
tee that he will represent their interests and maintain the character of this Dis- 
trict honorably and faithfully in Congress; that the only rational objection 
heretofore urged for withholding any portion of Democratic support, was fairly 
removed by his ujiright and honorable course during the late session of Con- 
gress ; and that any present opposition, from the same quarter, to his triumphant 
election, under the fair and honorable nomination enjoyed by him, would be an 
act of unjustifiable persecution, an exhibition of personal spite and malignity 
with which no honest Democrat can sympathize, and calculated to clothe with 
dark suspicion the former motives avowed by its authors. 

<' Resolved, That the patriots of the Revolution in achieving and establishing 
the freedom and independence of these States, vindicated and asserted the great 
principle of popular sovereignty and equal rights as affirmed and declared in 
the late acts of Congress, organizing the territories of Nebraska and Kansas ; 
that nature, and nature's God, appeal to the virtue, the integrity and intelligence 
of the people, to guard this precious principle as the ark of the covenant of 
their safety : and that the sufferings, the perils and the blood of the Ilevolu- 
tion will have been wasted in vain, and the dearest hopes of man on earth 
yielded up, when this great principle is sacrificed. 



495 

" Resolrrd, That the Missouri Compromise was an act of usurpation by Con- 
gress, and a fraud upon the people of those States : that Congress is sworn to 
uphold the Constitution and not to iotorpohitc or destroy it : that any acquies- 
cence in, or submission to, cliangcs of the fundamental law by Congress, would 
be in the last degree dangerous to the liberties of the people : and that the re- 
peal of the Missouri Compromise was a wise and necessary measure to efface 
from the statute books a precedent violation of the great charter of our inde- 
pendence and to arrest further insidious encroachments upon the great principle 
of popular sovereignty and equal rights." 

Here is the Democratic platform — and we copy extracts from the letter of 
acceptance of Col. Wright — it is too long for publication entire. Also the let- 
ter announcing his nomination. It may be found in the files of this paper of 
the 20th of September, 1854. 

Steele's Hotel, Wilkes-Barre, | 
September 12, 1854. | 

Hon. Hendrick B. "Wright — 

Bear iSir : — The Democratic Congressional Conference this day assembled 
and have placed you in nomination before the people of this District for Con- 
gress. The undersigned are a committee appointed by said Conference to com- 
municate to you the fact and request your acceptance. In making this commu- 
nication pleasure combines with duty. Your course upon the various measures 
which came before Congress, at the late session, has justly confirmed you in 
their confidence and regard. We refer especially to tbe great measure estab- 
lishing the principle of popular sovereignty in the Territories of this Union 

a principle vital to the security of every freeman : dear to his heart, and upon 
which is based his enjoyments of civil and rel'igious freedom. We especially 
refer to this measure as first in importance. Your votes against squauderino- 
the public money in misnamed improvements being in accordance with the one 
settled policy of this District, is also gratifying to know. In your publicly ex- 
pressed views upon religious toleration, we heartily accord. Your votes upon 
the Homestead bill, and in favor of old soldiers' rights, are true indexes of a 
hearty, sound and consistent Democrat. And it is our hearty prayer that the 
people appreciating their true interests may return you to Congress by a trium- 
phant majority. 

Your friends and fellow citizens, 

JOHN DEEN, .JR., 
HUDSON OWEN, 
JOHN V. SMITH. 



Wilkes-Barre, Sept. 14th, 1854. 
* * * * * 

"In the acceptance of the nomination which you have tendered rac, and 
which was stamped with so much unanimity in the primary meetings of the 
people, I have no policy as to my future course to conceal. The journal of the 
last Congress will exhibit my course as to the past. No voter of this District 
shall have occasion to say I have deceived him. He who casts his vote for me, 
does it with full knowledge of my political faith. I assume that he who soli- 
cits the sufi'rage of the people for so high a place as a seat in the councils of 
this nation, should frankly and honestly avow his opinions. There should be 
no concealment — there should be no falsehood, as it is a post of honor, he who 
seeks to attain it, should be a man of honor, and resort to no low device ; — no 
huckstering pretext to obtain it. You say, Gentlemen, that as to my course 



496 

among "the various measures which cams before Congress at the late session," 
and wiiich elicits your " confidence and regard," yi)u refer " especially to the 
great measure establishing the principle of popular sovereignty in the Territo- 
ries of this Union — a principle vital to the security of every freeman — dear to 
his heart, and upoti which is based his enjoyment of civil and religious free- 
dom." Your allusion is to the bill establishing Territorial Grovernmeat io 
Kansas and Nebraska. I spoke in favor of that bill. I voted for that bill — 
and as I then said, on the floor of Congress — I now repeat — that " I would 
rather be stricken down as the advocate of popular freedom, than be returned 
to the House in opposition to the great principle." Before taking my ^eat, I 
swore to support the Constitution of. my country. Among its wise provisions, 
I found that, " The powers not delegated to the United States, by the constitu- 
tion, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectfully, 
or to the people." That power which was not conceded, to the general govern- 
ment, but reserved in the people, I resolved, so far as I was concerned, should 
remain there. Wisdom dictated the reservation and fanaticism should never 
change it. Congress had no power, even by implication, (an abhorrent doc- 
trine at best) to interfere with law-making power of States or Territories. On 
the 6th of March, 1820, the 16th Congress passed an act establishing a territo- 
rial gqvernment for Missouri, in which was incorporated a provision that " sla- 
very should be prohibited, north of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes north 
latitude" in the territory ceded by France, under the name of Louisiana ; thus 
implyi\ig that slavery should not be prohibited south of that lino. In favor of 
the repeal of the law establishing this line, I cast my vote. I did so under the 
conviction that the power to make laws for the territories was, under the consti- 
tion, in " the people," and not in Congress. I had good reason to believe that 
the hardy pioneers who subdued the forests and broke up the prairies — who 
were exposed to the toils and privations of a frontier life — whose battles were 
with the wild beast and the savage, should not be deprived of making their 
own laws, as their situation and condition might warrant. That they were bet- 
ter judges of this than I; and to deprive them of this privilege would be an 
act of usurpation and tyranny. I desire that the people, who went to these 
new Territories, might go there as freemen, and not as slaves ; and if in their 
good judgment, they pleased to make a slave Territory of it, it was no business 
of mine. However much I may condemn slavery as an abstract question, I 
had nothing to do with the act of the freemen of Kansas and Nebraska. My 
allegiance was to the Constitution. Had I been guilty of usurping that power 
which the people had expressly reserved to themselves, I shcuM have commit- 
ted a wrong; and done an act of gross injustice to the people of those Territo- 
ries ; to the people of my own State ; to the people of this Union — and to 
liberal principles throughout the world — nay, I should have violated ray solemn 
oath. To please fanaticism, I could not do this ; nor could a reasonable man 
expect it of me." 

"I have been charged with treason for my vote on the Kansas and Nebraska 
bill ! This is the kind of treason that rankled in" the heart of Jefferson, when 
he had the temerity to assert the doctrine that the people were intelligent enough 
to govern themselves — and opposed to the idea of consolidated power. It was 
the treason of Jackson when he threw himself between the encroachments of 
the Federal government, and the sovereign rights of the States; in his vetoes 
of the Bank and the Maysville Road bill. 

" And the man who votes for sovereign power to remain with the enlightened 
freemen of this land; in the place of robbing them of it: — is the Traitor to 
■whom I will cling — and to whom I will do reverence. The indefatigable and 
persevering pioneer, who settles these new territories as his home — and that of 
his children — who reclaims the wilderness and makes it blossom as the rose — 



497 

who ItuilJs chirrclies and school-houses; — and ahovc all, who defends his coun- 
try and siipporta her treasury, shall not by my act, or vote, be robbed of liis 
civil rights — and denied the privilege of participating in making his own laws. 
I am notnun}berod among those philautlirof)ists of these hitter days — who yield 
the privilege of labor; of taxation — of battle, — to the citizens of Kansas and 
Nebraska, and deny. him the right of making his own laws. If this be treason, 
then I am a traitor ! — and along with me in this catalogue of treason — is Frank- 
lin Pierce, Lewis Cass, Stephen A. Douglas, 11. M. T. Hunter — and one hun- 
dred and twelve members of the House of Representatives of the IJuited States." 

The foregoing extracts will show the plain and unmistakable platform of Col. 
Wright — and on the stump, from one end of the District to the other, he car- 
ried it out — dissembliug nothing — publicly, everywhere, proclaiming the doc- 
trine of his address. 

What was i\Ir. Fuller and his friends at, about these times? 

Ou the rjth of September 1854, (See Record of the: Timcf, of the l.^th of 
Sept.,) the Whig County Convention met. They nominated Mr. Fuller — and 
laid down for him, the following platform : 

''Resolved, That while we question not the right to alter or amend any act of 
Congress by subsequent legislation, we view the passage of the act of the last 
session commonly called the ' Kansas Nebraska Bill,' as a wanton, unprovoked, 
-and cruel violation of plighted faith between the Northern and Southern por- 
tions of this confederacy — wanton, because unrequired by the circumstances of 
that portion of the public domain — unprovoked, because to the extent of their 
ability the Northern States had fully executed the compromise measures of 
1S50 — cruel, because destined to shackle with slavery a Territory larger than' 
the old thirteen States. 

" Resolved, That while we recognize and will carry out in good faith all our 
constitutional obligations, we are opposed to the extension of slavery beyond 
existing limits, and to any further iucreasc of its power in the National Coun- 
cils. 

"Resolved, That sincerely holding these views, we do hereby mark the au- 
thors, aiders and abetters of that act as men unworthy the support of enlight^ 
ened freemen for any office in their gift. 

" Resolved, That we have undiminished confidence in Hon. ,11. M. Fuller, and 
that our conferees arc instructed to use all honorable means to secure his re-no^ 
mination." 

Then while they had "undimishcd confidence in Mr. Fuller," they " ;r.arked 
the aiders and abetters and authors of that act as men unworthy the support of 
enlightened freemen ! I" As Mr. Fuller was not an "aider nor supporter" of 
the infamous act — he had the "confidence" of the party — Nay, the "undimi- 
nished confidence." 

His conferees met — they nominated him — and soon after he and Judge Pol- 
lock started canvassing the District — as none of these speeches are reported we 
cannot give extracts. In the one at Tunkhaunock, Mr. Fuller went further on 
the Abolition question than Gov. Pollock — they both denounced the Nebraska 
Kansas bill — and both pledged a repeal as far as was in their power. 

They came to Wilkes-Barre — they both made speeches here — and both de- 
nounced the Kansas bill, and preached Know Nothingism. The Times of Oct, 
4, 1854, says : 

"After the Judge the Hon. II. jM. Fuller spoke in his happiest style, and 
explained his position on the question of Slavery to the satisfaction of everj' 
freeman present." 

That " exposition" was the repeal of Nebraska and the restoration of the 
Missouri line, and we can prove it by 100 witnesses on the ground ! 
32 



498 

Froip tbe paper of the same date ^Yo copy the following editorial : 

" J5S§* Freemen bear in mind that the issue is not merely about men. Neither 
Wright nor Fuller — Pollock nor Bigler, has any claim personally thus to up- 
heave the popular Masses, like ocean into mountain billows. In voting (a most 
sacred right) you express your opinions of the great question at issue. Pollock 
and Fuller stand bct'ure you as the representatives of Freedom, opposed to the 
extension of Slavery into Nebraska, Ohio, Pennsylvania, everywhere throughout 
the Union. Their opponents, Bigler and Co., justify the principle that would 
so extend Slavery. Which do you approve 'i A solemn question. Your votes 
will record your opinions." 

This is the language of the Fuller organ ? Does he call this Anti-Nebraska 
sentiments ? Does he change his opinion ? " Anti-Nebraska did not elect him." 
Out, out upon sueh hypocrisy ! Neither Wright nor Fuller was the question ? 
It was Freedjn and Slavery. 

We now copy from the Whig press — when it was said ]Mr. Fuller had changed 
his principles — the County press. The Pitt^ton Gazctfr.^ a Whig paper, which 
warmly supported Mr. Fuller — iu the issue of the 28th of Doc, 1855, holds 
this language : 

" For one, we most heartily regret that our representative had not adhered to . 
the position which was generally understood he occupied — namely that of an 
out and out anti-Nebraska man — apposed to the admission of Kansas upon any 
other terms than that slavery should not be tderated there — and upon the sub- 
ject of the Missouri compromise; that it should as an act of simple justice to 
the free States, be restored." 

The Scranton Herald, another Whig county paper, and which also supported 
Mr. Fuiler-^-in its columns of the 20th of December, 1855, discourses iu this 
wise — and Mr. Fuller will not make an issue with either of these editors — nor 
will he say they have stated falsehoods : 

" On the Nebraska question, the popular will is decidedly opposed to every 
motive and principle which was developed in its passage ; whether it was de- 
signed to extend t^ic curse of slavery, or to promote the aggrandizement of the 
demagogues who urged and accomplished its success. Mr. Fuller was under- 
stood to be the exponent of the will of the people in this question : to be as 
warmly devoted to the cause of freedom as anyone among his constituents. 
Iu his speeches he openly and unreservedly avowed his principles to be in ac- 
cordance with the known sentiments of the great mass of the people. His op- 
ponent was an ultra Nebraska man, and supposed to be the very antipodes of 
Mr. Fuller, in respect to all his political principles. If the latter has published 
on the floor of Congress any sentiment in conflict with these, he has proved 
false to the platform upon which he was sustained and elected." 

"In his speeches, he openly and unreservedly avoweil his principles." Not 
so, Mr. Lathrop ! Mr. Fuller said in Congress, in the lirst place, that he would 
let Kansas and Nebraska alone, and now that "he was not elected by the Anti- 
Nebraska sentiment of his district." In your language, then, (and you were 
his political friend,) " he has proved false to the platfoam on which he was 
elected," and who doubts it? 

We have thus copied from the three Whig journals in this county, all of 
•which gave him an honest support, to show his platform, and we leave it to oth- 
ers to say whether his has been the conduct of an honorable man ! 

In Mr. Fuller's speech, in answer to Mr. Zollikoffer's question, he said, " my 
political existence commenced since that flood," — the Wilmot Proviso. He 
should have said in it. We will show his Hyde Park letter hereafter ; when 



499 

he was running for Canal Commissioner, he wrote the celebrated Iljde Park 
letter, in which he fully endorses the Wilmot Proviso. We have not room for 
it now. And yet this man is'applauded by Southern men when he tells them 
that " his political existence commenced since that flood." Southern men will 
be very careful what importance they give to Mr. Fuller's declarations. We 
will give the Hyde Paik letter soon, and in the meantime let Southern men ask 
Mr. Fuller if he is not now a member of the committee appointed by the Black 
llepublican convention, which met in Pittsburg, in this State, in September, 
1855, and which nominated Passmore Williamson as their candidate for Canal 
Commissioner. He will hardly be bold enough to deny this, too. But judging 
from what he has said, no human power can tell what he may say hereafter. 

Having denied that he was elected by the Anti-Nebraska sentiment of his 
district, when he gave pledge upon pledge to the Anti-Nebraska men, that if 
they would elect him, he would vote for the repeal of the law, and the restora- 
tion of the Missouri line, we cannot say what he will do next. 

His own friends accuse him of having " falsified his platform " — it is his duty 
now either to acknowledge publicly that he has wantonly deceived them, or re- 
sign his seat, and go to some other district than this. He is little aware of the 
state of things with an injured and outraged constituency. He will know. 



LIST OF MEMBERS 

Qf ihc House of li'prfKentativcs of the United States. Tlurfij-fnnrtk Con- 
(jress — First Session. C'unimcncinj Monday, December o, 1855. 

Maine. 



John M Wood, K. N. 
J'llin J. Perry, K. N. 
Ehenezer Kiioiclton, K. N. 



James Pilce, K. N. 
Mason W. Tdjrpan, K. N. 



Jimes MeacJiam., 
Justin S. Morrill, K. N. 



Rohcrt B. Hall, K. N. 
James Baffiuqton, K. N. 
William S. Damrell, K. N. 
Linus B. Comins, K. N. 
Anson Burlintjame, K. N. 
Timotliy Davis, K. N. 



Samuel P-. Benson,- 
Israel Washburn, Jr. 
Thomas J. D. Fuller, D.— 6. 

New Hampshire. 

Aaron H. Crayinj K. N. — 3, 



Vermont. 



Alvak Sab in. — o. 



Massachusetts. 



XatJi'l P. BarJs, Jr., K. N. 
Chaunccij L. Kiiaj^p, K. X. 
Alexander Dc Witt, K. N. 
Calvin C. Chaffee, K. N. 
Mark Trafton',K. N.— 11. 



Rhode Island. 



Nathaniel B. Durfce, K. N. 



BenJ. B. Thurston, K. N.— 2. 



500 



Connecticut. 



Ezra Clnrhe, Jr., K. N. 
John Woodruff, K. N. 



William W. Valk, K. N. 
James S. T. Stranahan, K. N. 
Guy R. Pelton, K. N. 
John Kelly, D. 
Thomas E. Whitnei/, K. N. 
John Wheeler, K. N. 
Thomas Childs, Jr., K. N. 
Ahram Wakeman, K. N. 
Bayard Clark, K. N. 
Ambrose S. Murrai/, 
Rufus II. King, K. N. 
Killian Miller, K. N. 
Russell Sage, K. N. 
Samuel Dickson, 
Edward Dodd, K. N. 
George A. Simmons, 
Francis E. Spinner^ 



Sidney Dean, K. N. 
Wm. 'W. Welch, K. N. 



New York. 



Thomas R. Ilorton, 
Jonas A. Ilughston, 
Orsamas B. Matteson, K. N". 
Henry Bennett, K. N. 
Andrew Z. McCarty, K. N. 
William A. Gilbert, 
Amos P. Granger, 
Edwin B. Morgan, 
Andrew Oliver, 
John M. Parker, 
William II. Kelsey, 
John AVilliams,"}" 
Benjamin Pringle, K. N. 
Thomas T. Flagler, K. N. 
Solomon G. Haven, K. N. 
Fran. S. Edwards, K. N.— 33. 



New Jersey. 



» Isaiah D. Claicson, K. N. 
George R. Robbins, K. N. 
James Bishop, K. N. 



Thomas B. Florence, D. 
Job R. Tyson, K. N. 
William killward, K. N. 
Jacob Broom, K, N. 
John Cadwalader, D. 
John Hickman, D. 
Samuel V. Bradshaw, K. N". 
J, Clancy Jones, D. 
Anthony E. Roberts, K. N. 
John C. Kunkel, K. N. 
James II. Campbell, K. N. 
Henry M. Fuller, K. N. 
Asa Packer, D. 



George Vail, D. 

A. C. M. Pennington, K. N.- 



Pennsylvania. 



Galusha A. Grow, 
John J. Pearce, K. N. 
Lemuel Todd, K. N. 
David F. Robison, K. N. 
Jo/tn i?. ^t//c, K. N. 
Jo/tra Govodc, K. N. 
Jonathan Knight, K. N. 
i)oi'«7 Ritchie, K. N. 
Sornnel A. Purviancc, K. 
Jb/«» Allison, K. N. 
David Barclay, D. 
Jr.A« Z)i>A-, K. N.— 25. 



Delaware. 



Elisha D. Cullen, K. N.— 1. 
Maryland. 



James A. Stewart, D. 
James B. Bicaud, K. N. 
J. Morrison Han is, K. N. 



H. Winter Davis, K. N. 
Henry W. Hoflfman, K. N. 
Thomas F. Bowie,* D.— 6. 



501 



Virginia. 



Thomas H. Bayly, D. 
John S. Millson, D. 
John S. Caskie, D. 
William O. Goode, D. 
Thomas S. Uncock, D. 
Paulus Powell, D. 
William Smith, D. 



Uobert T. Paine, K. N. 
Thomas Iluffin, D. 
Warren Winslow, D. 
Lawrence O'B. Branch, D. 



Charles J. Faulkner, D. 
John Letcher, D. 
Zedekiah Kidwell, D. 
John S. Carlile, K. N. 
Henry A. Edmundson, D. 
Fayette McMuUin, D. — 13. 



North Carolina. 



Edwin G. Beade, K. N. 
Richard C Puryear, K. N. 
Burton Craige, J). 
Thos. L. Clingmap,* D.— 8. 



South Carolina. 



John McQueen, D. 
William Aiken, D. 
Lawrence M. Keitt, D. 



James L. Seward, D. 
Martin J. Crawford, D. 
Robert P. Trippe, K. N. 
Hiram Warner, D. 



Percy Walker, K. N. 
Eli S. Shorter, I). 
James F. Dowdell, D. 
William R. Smith, K. N. 



Daniel B. Wright, D. 
Hendley S. Bennett, D. 
William Barksdale, D. 



George Eustis, Jr., K. N, 
Miles Taylor, D. 



Timothj C. Bay, 

John Scott Harrison, K. N, 

Lewis D. Camphell, K. N. 

Matthias H. Nichols, 

Richard Mott, 

J. Eeece Emrie, K. N. 



Georgia. 



Alabama. 



Preston S. Brooks, D. 
James L. Orr, I). 
William W. Boyce, D.— G. 



John H. Lumpkin, D. 
Howell Cobb, D. 
Nathaniel G Foster, K. N. 
Alex. H. Stephens,* D.— ^ 



George S. Houston, D. 
Williamson R. AV. Cobb, D. 
Sampson W. Harris, I). — 7. 



Mississippi. 



Louisiana. 



Ohio. 



William A. Lake, K. N. 
John A. Quitman, D. — 5. 



Thomas G. Davidson, D. 
John M. Sandidge, D. — 4. 



Samuel Galloway, K. N. 
John Sherman, K. N. 
Philemon Bliss, 
William R. Sapp, K. N. 
Edioard Ball, K. N. 
Charles J. Albright, K. N. 



502 

Ohio — ( Continued.) 



Aaron Harlan, K. N. 
Hi'HJa'Tixin Stnntun, K. N. 
Cooper K. ^Vatson., K. N. 
Oscar F. Moore, K. N. 
Valentine B. Horton, K. N. 



Benjamin F. Leiter, K. N. 

EJivard Wade, 

Joslnia R. Giddinga, 

John A. Bingham, K. N. — 21. 



Kentucky. 



Henry C. Burnett, D. 
John P. Campbell, K. N. 
Warner L. Underwood, K. N. 
Albert G-. Talbott, D. 
Joshua H. Jewett; D. 



Albert G. Watkins,* D. 
"William H. Sneed, K. N. 
Samuel A. Smith, D. 
John H. Savage, D. 
Charles Ready, K. N. 



Smith Miller, D. 
William H. English, D. 
George G. Dunn,| 
William Cumhack, K. N. 
David F. IloUuway, K. N. 
Lucian Barbour, K. N. 



Ellihu B. Washburn, 
James II. Woodicorth, 
Jesse 0. Norton, K. N. 
James Knox, K. N. 
William A. Richardson, D. 



Luther M. Kennet, K. N. 
Gilchrist Porter,§ 
James J. Lindley, K. N. 
Mordecai Oliver,* D. 



Alfred B. Greenwood, D. 



Tennessee. 



Indiana. 



Illinois. 



Missouri. 



Arkansas. 



Michigan. 



John M. Elliott, D. 
Humphrey Marshall, K. N. 
Alexander K. Marshall, K. N. 
Leander M. Cox, K. N. 
Samuel E. Swope, K. N. — 10. 



George W. Jones, D. 
John V. Wright, D. 
Felix K. Zollicoffer, K. N. 
Emerson Etheridge, K. N. 
Thomas Rivers, K. N.— 10. 



Harvey D. Scott,J 
Daniel Mace, K. N. 
Schuyler Colfax, K. N. 
Samuel Brenton, K. N. 
John U. Fcttit.— 11. 



Thomas L. Harris, D. 
James C. Allen, D. 



Samuel S. Marshall, D.— 9. 



John G. Miller, 
John S. Phelps, D. 
Samuel Caruthers,* J). — 7. 



Albert Rust, D.— 2. 



William A. Howard, K. N. 
Henry Waldron, K. N. 



David S. Walbridge, K. N. 
George W. Peck, I).— 4. 



Lemuel D. Evans, K. N 
Augustus Hall, J). 



503 

' Florida. 
Augustus E. Maxwell, D. — 1. 
Texas. 

P. H. Eoll, D.— 2. 

Iowa. 



ISCONSIN. 



Daniel Wells, Jr., D. 
Cadwalader C. Washhurnc, 



James Tliorinyton, K. N. — 2. 



Cliarles Billinghurst. — 3. 



James W. Denver, D 



California. 

Philip T. Herbert, D.— 2. 

Delegate from tie Territory of Minnesota. 

Henry M. Rice. — 1. 

Delegate from the Territory of Oregon. 

Joseph Lane. — 1. 

Delegate from the Territory of New Mexico. 

Jose 3Ianucl Gallegos. — 1. 

Delegate from the Territory of Utah. 

John 3L Bernhisel. — 1. 

Delegate from the Territory of Washington. 

J. Patton Anderson. — 1. 

Delegate from the Territory of Kansas. 

John W. Whitfield.— 1. 

Delegate from the Territory of Kebraslca. 

Bird B. Chapman. — 1. 



K N -Know Nothings. D.-Democrats. Those in italics voting for Banks. 

*_Formerly Whigs. t-^^oti°g ^'^^ ^- ^- ^'^- t-'^'^^'^S^ ^°^°S ^""^ Pennington. 

g_Whig voting for Fuller. 



504 



THE PHILADELPHIA HETEROGENEOUS '' FSEUDO-AMERICAN 
KILKENNY CONVENTION, FEBllUAUY THE 22d, 1856. 

The Know Nothing party, from every locality, met in the city of Philadel- 
phia on the 22(1 day of February, 1856, pursuant to orders, and put forth the 
following ticket : 

For President, MILLARD FILLMORE, of New York. 
For Vice President, ANDREW JACKSON donelson, of Tennessee. 

Mr. Fillmore, Gen. Sam Houston, of Texas, and John M. Clayton, of Dola- 
aware, are the triumvirate that is said to have first organized the Know Noth- 
ing party in the United States ; consequently, one of the three had to receive 
the nomination for President ; and as Mr. Fillmore had absented himself from 
the scenes of political broils, on a tour to Europe, he was thought to be the 
most available to catch the votes of old line AVhigs, anti-Cuba and fishy Demo- 
crats. We shall not pretend to raise the hackneyed cry of abolition against 
Mr. Fillmore ; but sufiice it to say, that a recurrence to his votes whilst a 
member of Congress, his Erie letter, his reprieve of two ncgro-stealers whilst 
President, and his nomination without a platform — with nothing to bind him — 
without a pledge to carry out; all go to show that, if elected, he will adopt a 
programme most suited to his taste, and to the tastes of the innumerable isms 
that will evidently rally to his support. 

To show Uiat Andrew Jackson donelson, the candidate upon this Kilkenny 
ticket for the Vifce Presidency, regarded Mr. Fillmore unsound upon the subject 
of slavery, as^ late as the spring of 1851, we have onl}' to introduce v/hat An- 
drew Jackson donelson says upon that subject whilst editor of the Union. 

We copy from the Washington Union, May the 17th, 1851. 

MR. riLLMORE AND ABOLITIOX. 

The special organ complains of our allusion to the part which Mr. Fillmore 
acted on the abolition question, alleging that in the last election, " it was the 
staple of atnmp s^peccJies and party resulutlons, and 'the Anier!.ca7i people elect-- 
ed Mr. FUhnore to the Vice Presidency in spite of it." According to the 
logic of the special organ, the statute of limitations exculpates entirely the 
agency of the Whig party in giving birth and dignity to political Anti-Slavery 
in order to secure the election of General Taylor and Mr. Fillmore, but must 
be interpreted in the very opposite sense when it suits its convenience to assert 
that the Democratic party is responsible for the Buffalo platform, and for the 
combination whiSh elected Mr. Sumner to the Senate of the United States. 
This kind of logic will not do, and is so contrary to the rules of common sense, 
that we are inclined to think it is only a way the special organ has of manifest- 
ing its ill-will that two such distinguished members of the cabinet as Messrs. 
Webster and Corwin should have left us some records on the subject which 
make the true logic one of the qualities that must ever be excluded from the 
Repuhlic. Did not Mr. Corwin implore the Abolitionists to vote for Mr. Fill- 
more, saying, they are my children — my Wluig children ? Did not Mr. ]Veb- 
ster say the same thing, in substance, ichen he reproached the Buffalo plat- 



505 

forvi ns a ihi'/l — an illicit tahimj of Whir/ projyertt/ ? But the special organ, 
admitting all tliis, saj^s, in substance, Did not the people elect Mr. Fillmore 
in spite of it? And can it be supposed that anijthinj which Mr. Fillmore did 
hefore the last election is to have any weight in determining Jiis claims as the 
present candidate of the Whig party for the Presidency f 

Tbis is the point which we wished to seo distinctly put by the special organ, 
in order that our readers may not mistake the lame and impotent defeuce which 
it sets up for the invincibility uf the present administration. Instead of raa- 
kiu'T the ni;uily declaration which the truth demands, that the combination by 
which Gen. Taylor was elected implicated the Whig party, both as the author of 
political anti-slavery and the benelieiary of all the results of the power it be- 
stowed — instead, we say, of admitting wliat is as clear as daylight on this sub- 
ject, and founding the desire of Mr. Fillmore to be elected to the Presidency 
on the magnanimity of his countrymen, who might forgive such a fault in the 
presence of the credit which is due to him for his conduct as the present head 
of the administration — the special organ prefers to persevere in charging un- 
justly the Democratic party, which has nobly defied the incendiary spirit of ab- 
olition in all the stages of its encroachment on the peace and harmony of the 
land. 

But if in this respect the special organ is unfortunate, it is not less so ia 
maintaining tliat the election of Mr. Fillmore to the presidency precludes an 
in(juiry into the objections which were made to him during that canvnss. This 
is indeed strange logic, whether applied to morals, laws, or politics. The wrong 
done by individuals or parties is often not really understood until the authors 
have been long in possession of the advantage which tempted them to commit 
the vrrong. If such logic were recognised by the people — if the objections 
made to the election of an individual to the presidency are to be considered as 
invalidated by his success — one of the highest safeguards against the dangers 
of party spirit would be withdrawn. Such logic would have kept J(jhn Quiucy 
Adams in power; for all the faults of his administration were anticipated, as 
the natural result of his unsound political principles, by those who opposed his 
election. Yet it did not avail him to say to the American people that the ob- 
jections made to his re-election had been disposed of by his first election, and 
to plead that, if they were true, the constituted authorities ought never to have 
trusted him with the highest office in the gift of the republic. 

We assure the special organ that we have no dc^re to profit by the very bad 
defence it makes for Mr. Fillmore, when it tells us that we ought not to go 
back to the circumstances which connect him with the abolition societies ; but 
we insist upon it that common justice claims for thedemocratic party the merit 
of not being responsible for the sins of those societies, by whose influence, we 
feel authorized in saying, the whig ticket succeeded at the last election. It 
will not do to answer this demand for justice by saying that the Erie letter 
"«!a.s printed and reprinted ten thousand times" during the List election, nor 
that Gen. Campbell asserts that he "knew Mr. Fillmore to be as free from 
abolition sentiments as any man in the North. Gen. Campbell cannot be pre- 
sumed to know Mr. Fillmore as well as Messrs. Webster and Corwin, whose 
testimony is before the whole country, proving, beyond all doubt or dispute, 
that abolition and free-soil were the property of whiggery, relied upon for a 
political purpose, and never abondon6d until it was seen that a political power 
thus organized could not exist without destroying our Constitution and Union. 

But it is- not alone on this question of the responsibility of the administra- 
tion for the evils of political anti-slavery, that we think the defence of the special 
orffan will be, and ought to be, unsatisfactory to the country. AVhen we stated 
facts proving the inadequate protection of our interests on our Mexican frontier, 
the reply set up was that we seemed disposed to take the side of the Mexican 
government ; or that at best^ all that could be made out of that fact was, that 



506 

a democratic Congress had left the War Department without means for the next 
fiscal year, tvhich docs not commence until the first of July next. All the moans 
were granted that were asked for during the past two years; and yet the fron- 
tier was not defended during that time, and the singular excuse is given that 
the appropriations for the estimates of the nest year were not what the heads 
of bureaus had desii'cd. What relation could tliere bo between such appropria- 
tions and the depredations of Indians that bad occurred a year before, and to 
prevent which there had been the most ample means provided by Congress ? 

Who is ANDREW JACKSON donelson ? The adopted son of President 
Jackson ? No ! Far from it. ANDREW JACKSON donelson is the ne- 
phew, if we are- correctly informed, of the wife of President Jackson, and was 
named for the express purpose of inheriting the estate of General Jackson ; 
but Old Hickory not fancying the gentleman, adopted Andrew Donelson, also a 
nephew of his wife, and had his name changed from Andrew Donelson to An- 
drew Jackson, Jr. Therefore Andrew Jackson, Jr., inherited the whole of 
the Old Plero's estate, and is now quietly residing at the Hermitage. AN- 
DREW JACKSON donelson (of Tulip Hill) is no more the adopted son of Pre- 
sident Jackson than a man unborn, but on the other hand, is a pompous renegade 
of great pretensions, with the faculty of presumption developed at the expense 
of all the re.'^t of the bumps. 



CONCLUDING REMARKS. 

In the foregoing compilation of political matter, we have thought it unneces- 
sary in the majority of instances, to make any prefatory remarks, as the whole 
object has been to present and preserve such articles, letters and speeches as 
were elicited during, antecedent and subsequent to the great fight of the 
South against Know Nothingism. Some portions of the work will show the 
consequences and disorganized state of things resulting from the influence of 
Know Nothingism; whilst other parts are designed for reference in the approach, 
ing Presidential election ; and to show that the Democratic party is the only 
palladium of this great Republic. 



Preface, - - - - - - v 

The birth, parentage and ancestry of Henry A. Wise, - - vii 

The politics of ftlr. Wise's ancestors. His education and first marriage, - xii 

The commencement of Mr. Wise's political life. His first election to Congress. 

Duel with Coke. Removal of the deposits. Captain of the Awkward Squad, xv 

Re-election to Congress in 1835. Reminiscence of the death of John Randolph, 

of Roanoke, ...... xix 

Presidential Campaign of 1S36. Pet Bank System. Death of Mrs. Wise. Re- 
election to Congress in J 837, - - - - xx 

Graves and Cilley duel, . . _ . . jxi 

Re-election to Congress in 1839. Presidential Campaign in 1840. Second 

marriasre, ...... xxvii 

Extra session of Congress in 1841 . Rejection for the mission to France. Re- 
election to Congress. Elected minister to Rio Janeiro. Retuins home in 
1847, 1 .... . xxxii 

Returns to private life. State election in 1848. Election to the State Conven- 
tion. Death of his second wife. Election again in 1842. Third marriage. 
Personal appearance. Conclusion, - - - - xxxv 



Absurdity of fearing the Catholics, .... 137 

Asserted temporal power of the Pijpe, .... ]4[ 

A speaker elected, - - - - - 487 

An essay by the Hon. Sherrard Clem.ens of Wheeling, Va. - - 215 

An appeal to the clergy, .... - 270 

A sermon from Leviticus for Sam, - - - - 277 

American organ, ..... 242 

A monstrous fraud, .... - 343 

Appendix, _..-.- 365 

Boston Telegraph, - - - - - 238 

Boston Advertiser, ... - - 244 

Comments of the press upon the Staunton nominees, - - 32 

Concluding remarks, ..... 507 

Confidence of the opposition, - - - - 35 

Charlottesville Jefi'ersonian, - - ■ - - 38 

Cry of dis;iffection, - - - - - 37 

Council of ten, ...--- 157 

Comfort for the frightened — cheer for the faint hearted, - - 229 

Council of thirteen of the U. States, - - - - 160 

Chang and Eng — Sam and the woolly heads — a chapter of death warrants, - 233 

Civil incapacitations ice. ..... 2S0 

Congressional canvass, ..... 344 

Conclusion of the canvass, - - - - 353 

Democratic meeting in Norfolk County, - - . - 7 

Distinguished Democratic orators of the canvass, - - - 116 

Downfall of Botts, - - - - - 265 

Dr. R J. Breckenridge — politician, .... j>73 

Disarming of citizens — the first step towards despotism, - - 287 

Duplicity better than nationality, .... 330 



508 

Dyin? wailg from the culvert, - - . . 334 

Democratic triumph, - - _ . . 3(^3 

Dowdell festival in Alabama, - - - . 4;i(i 

Essay by the Hon. Sherrard Clemens of Wheeling, Va. - - 215 

Equal rights and equal laws, - - . . 324 

First appearance of Know Nothingism in Virginia, - - - 27 

Foreiirn born Democratic martyrs, - - - - 60 
Facts of the census, - - - - -131 

Foreigners rule America, - - - ' . - ]33 

Four isms united, - . - . . 252 

Foreigners and the South, ..... 334 

Foreign born citizens in the American revolution, ... 453 

Gulliver's past, - - - . - -412 

Gulliver again, ...... 4j8 

Hon. Henry A. Wise's letter upon Know Nothingism, . - 7 

Hybrid ticket, - - - . . - I6"> 

Historical researches of the Hon. T. S. Flournoy, - - - 166 

Hon. L. M. Keitt of S. Carolinia, his speech, - - - 240 

Hurrah for Botts, . - . . _ 258 

Has emigration injured our country, .... 289 

Hostility to emigration, - . . . . 2512 

Hon. Amos Biirlms;ame, - - . - . 241 

Hon^ Henry M. Fuller — his somerset, .... 4(33 

Introduction, -.-... g 

Issues of the canvass, - - - . - 43 

Inaugural aJdress of Gov. Pollock of Pennsylvania, Tuesday, Jan. 16, 1855, 245 

Inaugural address of Gov. Causey of Delaware, ... 247 

John Mitchell the Irish patriot, .... 287 

Judge Douglas in Richmond, . z. - - - 67 

Know Nothing ritual exposed, . ' - - - 46 

Know Nothingism an alias of Federalism, . < - - 54 

Know N^othinijism and Catholicism, - - . - 139 

Know Nothings of the North. Movements upon the slavery question, - 250 

Know Nothing humbugs examined and exploded, - - - 321 

Know Nothing oath, - - . . . i2!) 
Know Nothing Philadelphia platform. Notes and comments by the Richmond 

Enquirer, - . . _ . . 449 

Know Nothingism unveiled, .... 457 

Lettpf of the Hon A. H Stephens of Georgia, . - . 312 

Letter of John H Claiborne, .... 333 

Letter from the Hon. D. S. Dickenson, - ' - . - 341 

Letter of S. Wallace Cone, - . . . . 433 



List of members of the House of Representatives of the United States, 
Lynchburg Know Nothing convention, ... 



5(10 
479 



Mr. Hunter's speech in Petersburg, . - - .70 

Mr. Wise at Alexandria, . - . -93 

Mr. Michie's Letter, . . . - 117 

Mr. James Lyons and Bishop McGill, - .' . - 145 

Mermaid Ticket, .... jgg 

Mr. Flournoy's Acceptance, - - . - 169 

Mr. Patton's speech at Richmond, - - . - 178 

Mr. Patton and his clients, - . - - 193 

Metropolitan District, .... 256 

Mr. Wise writes from Washington City after he concludes the campaign, - iSn3 

Mr. Wise in Washington after the result was known, . . 409 

Mr. Wise's Petersburg Letter, .... 429 

Mr. Wise's North Carolina Letter, .... 430 

Mr. Wise and the New York. H*rds and Softs, - - - 432 

Mr. Wise opens the canvass, - . . - 39 



509 

Mr. Wise in 1843, ' ' ' ' ' J^^- 

Mr. Wise's letter to S. Wallace Cone, . - - - 43o 

Mr. Wise's letter to the Alabama committee, ... 4:j7 

Mr. Wise's letter to the Boston Nesjfro Stealers, - - - 431) 

Mr. Wise's letter to the Mercantile Library Association, Boston, - - 441 

Mr. Wise's letter to the National Democrats^of New York, - - 442 

Members of the House of Delegates elected in May ISoo, - - 360 

Nationality of the Democratic party in 18.").'), - - - 202 



New York Herald, 



250 



Norfolk Argus, - -. - - 39 

Orators of the canvas."', - - - - G7 

One of the victories of the new party, - - - - 297 

Official vote of Virginia, - - • - * 3.)5 

« Our Nat elected and no mistake," - - - - 415 

Obituary of Sam, . - - - 420 

Paternity of Know Nothingism— A political chronicle, - - 55 

Patriotic sentiments of an eminent clergyman in Virginia, - -• 267 

Philadelphia North American, - - - - 243 

Political purification, .... 346 

Richmond Whig, .... 4.'. 

Reasons why I am a Democrat and not a Know Nothing, - - 2()5 ^ 

Religious toleration before the American revolution, - - ' - 283 

Staunton Democratic Convention, - - - " ^.^ 

Secret societies and Republican institutions, &c., &c. - - - 160 

Some of the antecedents of the Kangaroo ticket, - - - lh2 

Statesmanship of Mr. Flournoy, - - - " '~l 

Senator Wilson of Massachusetts, &.c.,&c. ... 236 

Speech of Mr. Ruffin, - - - - 299 

Sherrard Clemens, . - • * " 3i)0 

Signal gun from the Richmond Examiner, - - - 351 

Spcechof Judge Douglas upon the Kansas and Nebraska bill, ' - - 36.5 

Slavery and Popery, .... .j08 

"Saw but one man in 5 months against Sam," ... 416 

Sam's first epistle to the Hindoos, .... 337 

State Senators elected in 1855, . • - - 359 

Twenty-fourth day of May in Virginia in 1855, - - - 362 

The Nationality of the Democratic party, - - - 4rt4 

The Philadelphia heterogeneous pseudo American Kilkenny convention, - 505 

Valley Democrat, - • ■ - 32 

Viginia Democ-atic organization, - - - - 119 

Virginia D'emocratic address from the executive committee, - - 123 

Various arguments and dogmas of Know Nothingism examined, - - 120 

Virginia Know Nothing platform, - - - - 254 

Violence the natural consequence of the Know Nothing organization, . 328 

Washington Sentinel, - • ' - 36 

Winchester Convention, ... 146 

Winchester ticket, ... 151 

What have they done, ... - *,.»l 

Way the money was lost, - * " - 410 

Wise not more than thirty thousand votes in the State, - ■ 411 

Washington Union, - „ •^■^" 



THE QUARTERLY LAAV JOURNAL. 

Edited by A. B. GUIGON, of the Richmond Bar. 

CoNTUiBUTOiis : — Wm. Green, of Culpepfr; Judge J. W. Brockenbrough ; Prof. J. 
B. Minor, University of Virginia; Gustavus A. Myers ; W. T. Joynes, author of 
'' Essay on Limitations;" J. M. Mathews, author of the "Guide to Commis- 
sions in Chancery" and the "Digest of the Laws of Virginia;" G. W. Read, 
author of "Probate of Wills;" A. H. Sands, autlior of " History of Suit in 
Equity," and other professional gentlemen of well-known ability and learning, 
have agreed to contribute to the columns of the Journal. 

The undersigned commenced on the 1st of January, 1S56, the publication of a 
Law Journal. The want of such a work, containing material of peculiar interest 
and importance to the Bar of Virginia and of other Southern and Western States, 
has been long felt and frequently expressed, and more than one publisher has been 
solicited to undertake its publication. 

The uuclersigned, tlicrcfure, believing that such a periodical v>'ouId be not onlv im- 
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chusetts, have, for some few years past, supported the publication of such journals. 
Why should not the barristers of Virginia and of the South and West have theirs.? 
A journal which they may call their own, and in the pages of which they will find 
law more peculiarly affecting their actual daily practice. 

To meet this want, it is designed to publish such matters as will be of value to 
Virginia and the practitioners of the Southern and Western States, and in confor- 
rnitv to this, I would call attention to the following features which I propose to in- 
corporate in the Journal. 

In the first place, it is designed to furnish reports of decisions made by the Fede- 
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reports of decisions ma,de by the Special Court of Appeals, and by the Supreme 
Court of Appeals in cases of interest and importance. 

The earlier numbers will contain a coinplete digested index of the reports of Grat- 
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Each number of the Journal wmII contain a chapter or more of the Revisors' Re- 
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been made by statutory enactments since the year 1849. This companion tp the 
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Code. The importance of these Reports is well known by members of the profes- 
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There will be occasionally introduced forms, of utility to practitioners, Clerks of 
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For the rest, the Journal will contain the usual matter of such publications ; the 
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The work is published quarterly, on good white paper, each number containing 
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A specimen number will be sent to any one who will apply. 

Cards inserted 12 mouths for ^5 00, longer advertisements in proportion. 

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No. 121, Main Street, Richmond, Va. 



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